Adding staff typically isn't seen as a way to reduce bureaucracy. But the NCAA, often thought to have a bureaucratic structure, has added eight investigators to its national office enforcement staff over the last several months to streamline and make more efficient one of the Association's core functions.

The 50 percent increase in the enforcement staff was a promise NCAA President Myles Brand made during his State of the Association address at the 2004 NCAA Convention. Brand advocated for more investigators to process major infractions in a timely and effective manner. The growth, achieved without increasing the national office budget, gives the NCAA's enforcement arm the reach it needs to break through increasingly litigious barriers and adjudicate more swiftly and efficiently.

Though the increase may evoke thoughts of an NCAA police state to some, the move actually is designed tovfavor NCAA member schools -- even those being investigated. Increased efficiency will allow the staff to process individual cases more quickly, which means programs involved in an infractions case can put violations behind them and escape the investigative shadow that much faster. Brand noted as much in his Convention speech, saying, "Investigations must be timely, so as to minimize adverse consequences to the entire university."

That's important, since cases under the old enforcement model during the past six years have taken an average of about 22 months from the time of initial discovery of allegations to a Committee on Infractions decision. Any number of issues cause delays -- from increased paperwork to complex legal tangles. Also, in the age of open records and Internet communication, investigations often are incorrectly perceived to have begun the minute an NCAA staff member sets foot on campus. It may take several months of inquiry before an investigation really develops, but once word leaks that the NCAA is "sniffing around," the damage to the institution's reputation coincides. Any lessening of that outcome would be welcome.

David Price, NCAA vice-president for enforcement services, says the increase to 20 investigators in major infractions should reduce the time between the discovery of initial information and the notice of allegations to one year or less. He said that's been closer to 18-19 months in the past, partly because of an increase in the litigious nature of cases. That time savings alone is good news.

"Our overall goal is to process cases more expeditiously without losing quality," Price said.

To accomplish that, Price and his group, which includes major infractions; secondary infractions;
agent, gambling and amateurism activities; and basketball certification, developed a plan to counter some trends that have put the squeeze on the way enforcement used to do business.

The primary trend is the increase in the amount of time it takes to process a major infractions case. Over the past decade, the number of purported cases of major infractions has increased slightly, but the number of investigators has remained the same (12 from 1997 through 2002). While the increase in case load has been modest, the complexity of the cases has increased exponentially, primarily because more institutions hire outside legal firms to defend them in major infractions cases. That adds layers to the process and can make the proceedings more adversarial.

Price said the legal climate is partly a result of the fact that the stakes are higher. There's a higher awareness now that a major case could prompt some very severe sanctions, such as scholarship reductions or the loss of postseason play. As a result, institutions have opted for outside counsel.

Shep Cooper, NCAA director for the Committee on Infractions, said those higher stakes manifest themselves in almost a ripple effect. Significant dollars are at issue if scholarships are limited, which may limit a team's ability to compete, which may affect winning and, eventually, ticket sales.

"Coaches' careers also may be on the line," Cooper said, "so they now almost always retain attorneys, whereas four or five years ago you didn't see that as much. When you get more attorneys involved, you get a lot more issues raised relating to policies and procedures, and that can contribute to delays."

While the expansion of staff wasn't done simply to deal with the litigious environment, more staff can expedite a case if in fact it has slowed down because of more attorneys.

The additional investigators also will allow the group to employ a team approach to major cases as necessary. That should expedite the proceedings since it will reduce or even eliminate what Price calls "the shelf life" of a case. He said under the old enforcement model, when an investigator was assigned to a case and then another case surfaced -- perhaps one that was more public or more egregious -- the first case went on the shelf and gathered dust until the investigator could get back to it. The team approach will allow for more flexibility if one case unexpectedly becomes a priority over another.

Staff already has begun work to determine case categories as well. That may employ a hierarchy approach in which cases are prioritized based on the violations and the visibility of the case. For example, "Level I" cases could be those determined to be the most major.

Another part of the plan is to have a minimum amount of follow-up in institutional self-reports that do not contain significant core issues (academic fraud, major recruiting violations or student-athlete well-being issues). The staff currently spends major time processing those cases (which constitute about half of the cases at any one time) and following up afterward.

"Major infractions cases are not 'one size fits all,' " said Mark Jones, managing director of enforcement. "Some barely cross a gray line between major and secondary -- but they're considered major just like the most egregious cases. We think that in trying to improve service to the membership, which is what this staff expansion is all about, we could look at some self-reported cases that are just over that line and that appear to be well-done and thorough, and spend less time processing those. Such thinking doesn't apply to the major cases, though -- we're not as interested in expedition there as we are making sure we have it right."

Price called the business plan a "win-win" for everyone.

"In general, the plan maintains the quality of the process while moving cases along more expeditiously," he said. "There will be cases that take a long time because they need to in order to be done well. But those cases should be few and far between.

"We'll want to evaluate the plan over time to make sure we don't get off track. If we're moving cases along at a more rapid pace and we feel that we're getting at the core of the case and being more thorough at the same time, that will indicate to me that we're not getting off track."

Staff restructuring

To accommodate the additional investigators without additional budget requests, some staff shuffling has occurred. The staff-assignment review was part of an office-wide initiative to align staff in ways that best supported the NCAA's recently adopted strategic plan. One of the first areas to be reviewed was the basketball certification unit housed within the enforcement staff.

Basketball certification was a front-burner topic several years ago when the Division I Working Group to Study Basketball Issues recommended that a concerted effort be made to "provide sunshine" on the financial relationships surrounding summer camps, which were determined to be a problem area. But the ensuing probe didn't reveal much, and the Division I membership thought the forms required to complete the review were cumbersome. Thus, the amount of information required from the membership was reduced, and the basketball certification staff was cut from four to one through reallocation within the national office.

Another reduction in the enforcement staff came in the secondary infractions area. Though secondary cases continue to grow in number, many of them are cases the staff believes can be processed and reported on an annual basis by institutions and/or conferences. The plan is to establish two levels for secondary violations, one for serious, intentional or repeated secondary violations that will be processed by staff, and the other for less significant secondary violations that will be handled at the campus or conference level.

Though there are challenges inherent in such a change (see related story above), the staff expects up to a 65 percent reduction in the number of secondary cases it will have to process by August 2005.

The reallocation provides for a major-infractions staff consisting of five directors, each of whom lead teams of four associate or assistant directors. The directors are Dave Didion, Steph Hannah, Tom Hosty, Julie Roe and Ameen Najjar. Najjar replaces Jones, who after 18 years at the national office has decided to accept a position with an Indianapolis-based legal firm.

Case workload

Not only will the staff realignment result in cases being processed more efficiently, it very well might result in more cases being processed, period. There's a presumption that with more staff and moving cases through faster, the staff could end up with more infractions cases being heard at any one time. "The goal of the expansion is to expedite cases," Jones said, "not expand the number of cases. But let's not kid ourselves -- it could be both."

That could be a challenge for an already tapped-out Committee on Infractions. The 10-member group composed of volunteers from the membership and general public already meets six times annually.

"At the moment, the committee as it stands with its current number of members is at its workload capacity," Cooper said. "Like other NCAA committees, members are volunteers -- they all have full-time jobs; half of them are attorneys themselves. These are busy people who do this on their own, and they end up having to spend evenings and weekends going over all the material. They've indicated that they're tapped out as it is."

Cooper said if the new enforcement structure causes an increase in cases, staff may need to consider increasing the number of hearings and meetings -- which could lead to increasing the size of the committee.

"We've already begun some preliminary thinking about changing the composition of the infractions committee," said Price. One option under review, Price said, is expanding the number of committee members and putting them in a meeting rotation so that none would attend more than six meetings per year, even though the committee itself would meet more frequently.

For example, if delays or "bottlenecks" occur regularly, the committee could be expanded to 15 members, drawing five to serve at hearings. Cooper also said that the committee could be augmented with former members who could serve on a rotational basis. The committee already uses that practice in instances where current members have to miss a meeting.

Though there still are some details to work out, the enforcement staff's business plan is largely under way. Staff members are targeting August 2005 as a deadline by which to measure results. The consensus so far is that the impact will be positive.

And while the effects of the changes in the enforcement staff and in the processes it uses to conduct investigations may not be realized until they've been in operation for a while, Jones suspects the initiative will be accepted by the membership much like a community accepts a beefed-up police force. Those who are inclined to bend or break the rules might be concerned, but those who live by them won't be.

"What these changes signal is that the NCAA takes enforcement very seriously and that the staff wants to provide better service," Jones said. "We want to protect competitive equity by holding accountable those institutions that do have problems with the rules, and we want to do it in the most fair and timely way, so that even if you're under inquiry, it won't take too long."

"No one likes a lengthy investigation, particularly when it's public," Price said. "If you can move in and get your investigation concluded in a more compact time frame and move on, that would be viewed very favorably by the membership."

Enforcement plan

Provide more timely investigations of major infractions cases without sacrificing the quality of the investigation.

Improve the efficiency of investigations involving major infractions.

Streamline the secondary infractions process.

Prepare alternatives to the Committee on Infractions hearing process if the expanded major enforcement staff results in case overload, thus creating delays and "bottlenecks."

Process institutional self-reports that do not contain significant core issues with a minimum amount of re-investigation by the enforcement staff.