GORHAM–A first draft released Monday of a proposed administrative restructuring of schools and colleges at the University of Southern Maine is not expected to impact its Gorham campus.

“It’s not going to have any direct impact on the way the Gorham campus looks now, the way it interacts with the community and the way its integrated into USM as a whole,” Bob Caswell, university executive director of public affairs, said Monday.

It does not call for any physical change and doesn’t eliminate any program, Caswell said.

The proposal calls for the university’s eight schools and colleges to be remodeled into five colleges.

The university said three dean positions and their associated offices would be eliminated, a move that would save a minimum of $750,000 per year. A realignment of positions throughout the colleges also is expected to trim administrative costs.

The restructuring proposal would need approval from Selma Botman, president of the University of Southern Maine, and the trustees of the University of Maine System.

An eight-member “design team” of administrators and faculty drafted the proposal and submitted it Monday to Botman and the university community.

“We face an estimated $3 million shortfall in the fiscal year that begins this July 1,” James B. Shaffer, the university’s chief operating officer and chairman of the design team, said in a prepared statement Monday.

Caswell said the proposal is the first draft to remodel schools and colleges. Caswell said final action would come at the end of May and implementation would take a year.

The university said in a statement that “the goal is to create an organizational structure that is academically robust and synergistic, serves the needs of students and the state, and helps make USM fiscally sustainable over the long term.”

Caswell said the proposal is a look at “how we organize the schools and colleges” and how they serve students and realize administrative efficiencies.

Feedback will be accepted through Monday, March 15. A final draft will be submitted to Botman on Friday, March 19.

The university said its Lewiston-Auburn College and the University of Maine School of Law, an administrative unit of USM, are not affected by the draft proposal.

Shaffer said other cost-saving strategies would be implemented beginning this spring.

The draft proposal is available at http://usm.maine.edu/pres/reorganization/.