Staff Assembly would first of all like to thank all those who participated in the survey. The summary along with all the comments posted are available in PDF form. This is a 90 page document so if possible we will appreciate it if people refrain from printing or print in double sided form. The campus administration has reviewed this document already to help them in their decision process. We are working closely with the Staff Advisors to the Regents to also deliver the document to the Office of the President and to the Regents directly. Rest assured, your comments will be viewed at the highest levels.

We identified nearly 1400 responses and 600 of those included comments that offer perspectives, recommendations, and reflections that provide a good cross section of how staff view this issue. We understand that with the increased financial constraints following the defeat of various ballot initiatives, there is a greater pressure to find means to save money.

The Staff Assembly Executive Committee has reviewed the results and has identified what we believe would be a representative recommendation to the campus administration. While our recommendation will not benefit all staff, our decisions and discussions included the perspectives provided by the survey and information obtained by our executive committee members.

1. Furloughs are preferable to pay cuts and layoffs.

 It is clear that if someone has reduced pay, they would prefer there is a corresponding reduction of work. It was also evident that layoffs mean more work without more pay. A furlough provides a more equitable exchange between work and pay. Staff can at least have time off from work in exchange for reduced compensation. We continue to see our co-workers employed, for some, it means that they are still employed by the university due to retention increases from not implementing pay cuts. When the budget situation improves, a furlough can be ended and full pay can be resumed. There is no need to spend time and effort to recruit and train staff to fill vacancies that were created as a result of layoffs. In the situation if pay cuts were employed, a return to full budget does not mean necessarily a return to the previous pay rate.

Staff Assembly recognizes that there are several issues with this recommendation. Staff who are exempt or have expectations to produce a certain output over a fixed time will retain the workload. This means less time but the same amount of work or working during weekends, holidays, or furlough days to make sure that a deadline is met.

2. Furloughs should affect all employees equally

Staff Assembly would recommend that furloughs should impact employees equally. When such a negative impact is applied to only a subset, it creates inequity and division within the university. The message is that the budget problems only affect certain people. It would be very difficult to have people in the same department treated in different ways in a furlough implementation because of their classification, their source of funding, or their standing in either an academic or non-academic position.

Furloughs do however have a limitation, especially for academic and exempt individuals. As mentioned earlier, academic and exempt positions have job expectations that are not necessarily linked to being at a location on specified days. Many work long hours into nights, evenings, weekends, and holidays to complete assigned tasks. If deadlines are not adjusted, these individuals will likely still have the same total number of work hours with or without a furlough. In addition, there are staff who are not on state funds. Applying a furlough to them will only have an indirect benefit in that energy and other resources consumed when they are on the job are not consumed. There can be further impacts such as budget reduction if grant funded positions have clauses for work hours. However, Staff Assembly recognizes that it may be far more important to consider equity and avoid a divisive force that would impact the university in far more profound ways than monetarily.

3. Furloughs should be taken on the same days

If the goal is to save money, entire furlough days where the campus operates in the same way as it does on a weekend or a holiday is preferable. There are additional cost savings such as reduction in energy use that can be realized and further save money and hopefully save jobs. By having a non-operating day, work does not necessarily pile up as it would if people were taking different days. There would be less management overhead in scheduling furlough days and tracking if people have taken their furlough day. Planning and operating for such days is already done by departments as they would operate for a weekend or a holiday so procedures and processes are already in place. A full closed day communicates clearly the impact of budget reduction on the campus.

Staff Assembly recognizes the issues related to this recommendation especially those that affect research and teaching. There are explicit teaching hours that have to be completed (unit hours) by students. Researcher projects and the timing of various experiments may require work on a furlough day established. Staff Assembly also recognizes that a majority of survey respondents had favored flexibility in taking furloughs. However, a campus wide furlough day would realize a greater savings to the university overall while communicating the impact to the public.

 4. Furloughs should avoid impacting benefits and retirement calculations

Staff having to deal with a pay reduction as a result of the furloughs should not have to also worry about health benefits and retirement. If furloughs have an impact on retirement calculations, it could be that the state’s budget woes, however extended they  may be, will have a longer term impact on staff. This should be avoided by treating furloughed hours differently than simply unpaid leave. In addition, health benefits are critical to ensuring that staff and their families are healthy. A reduction in these benefits because of furloughs will have secondary impacts not only on staff and their families but also on the university as it impacts productivity in the form of sick days or unhealthy employees. While there may be additional savings if retirement and benefits are adjusted along with the application of furloughs, such a move would have impacts beyond the short term budget savings goals.