Fresno State President John Welty is out of touch with reality when he says that the Comprehensive Management System "has improved many essential services on campus." As the recently retired assistant registrar, I talked to frustrated students on a daily basis. Staff members struggle to provide student services with the poorly designed and inefficient PeopleSoft student-records system.

The previous student-records system was a highly functional and efficient system currently used at Cal State Northridge, San Francisco State and San Diego State. The system was redesigned using database technology as profiled in The Bee in March 1999. San Francisco's Web component was available for Fresno to use at a fraction of the cost of the PeopleSoft system, but the administration selected PeopleSoft instead.

Dr. Welty is wrong when he says the admission process has improved. Measure the number of days from when the student applied to when an admissions decision was made and compare data from the previous system and the current system and let the numbers prove that the admissions process now takes longer.

As a taxpayer, I am angry that once again millions of our tax dollars are wasted on a poorly designed system. Please contact your state legislators and encourage them to stop this statewide fiasco.