Furlough days
- 2 days: $29,999 and under
- 3 days: $30,000-$49,999
- 4 days: $50,000-$69,999
- 5 days: $70,000-$89,999
- 6 days: $90,000-$114,999
- 7 days: $115,000-$139,999
- 8 days: $140,000-$169,999
- 9 days: $170,000-$199,999
- 10 days: $200,000+
Exempt employees
- 100 percent grant-funded employees
- Student hourly employees
- Graduate assistants
- H1-B visa holders
- Nonexempt, Contingent 1 staff
- Exempt, Contingent 1 staff
- Hourly faculty
- Non-regular, non-tenured faculty
- Faculty and staff appointed on or after Feb. 1, 2010
The campus will close for four days this academic year and even the lowest-paid university employees will be forced to take two unpaid days off under a furlough plan released this weekend.
The plan, which was released by university President Dan Mote and Director of Human Resources Dale Anderson, is necessary to save a state-mandated $10.2 million in employee salary costs. The university and state have been battered by a declining economy and shrinking budgets. The number of days employees will be furloughed is based on a sliding scale, with the highest-salaried employees — those making $200,000 or more — forced to take 10 days off.
“We all agree that furloughs are tough and that they are especially difficult for some members of our community,” Mote wrote in a campus-wide e-mail announcing the plan sent Saturday. “The guiding principle of our furlough plan is equity and fairness for campus employees, while satisfying operational mandates covering our educational mission. What is equitable and fair is in the eye of the beholder.”
While graduate assistants, hourly-paid student employees, grant-funded employees and several other groups of staff won’t have their pay reduced, lower-paid employees will. The union representing the campus’s lower paid workers, the university chapter of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, had pushed for lower-paid employees to be exempt from furloughs. But even those making less than $30,000 will have to take two days off.
“We didn’t get what we wanted as far as the lowest-paid workers, and we aren’t happy with that,” said Craig Newman, the secretary-treasurer of the AFSCME Local 1072.
Vice President for Administrative Affairs Ann Wylie said the administration had little choice, and pointed out the lowest-paid state employees at other agencies were furloughed for three days.
“We felt that everyone should be furloughed,” she said. “Everyone in the state government was furloughed ... We just felt that this was a huge problem, financial problem and everyone should share the burden.”
Newman pointed to other concessions the union received during negotiations: The highest level for furloughs was set at $200,000 instead of $250,000 and that the salary reductions will be spread out over several paychecks instead of one. This, Newman said, means most of AFSCME’s members will lose no more than two hours of gross pay per paycheck. Spreading out the salary reductions means “it’s still something that you can manage in a budget in comparison to the elimination of a whole day,” he said.
The campus will shut down for two separate two-day periods, once right before Christmas — Dec. 23 and 24 — and once during spring break — March 17 and 18. On the days the campus shuts down, the university will operate like it does on snow day — most administrators and professors will stay home, but some services, like University Police, will continue working. Administrators and University Senate Executive Committee members agreed shutting down the campus for brief periods of time when classes are out of session will help preserve the university’s educational mission.
Further cuts to the university budget are likely, after Gov. Martin O’Malley announced last week there is a $300 million remaining deficit for this year’s state budget and a projected $2 billion one for next year. Newman said the union is prepared to fight to prevent further financial harm to their members.
“We’re fairly clear these budgets aren’t cut to the bone,” Newman said of university departments. “We’re tired of seeing first-class hotels and people having BlackBerrys when they don’t need them when they’re telling campus human resources they’re cut to the bone.”
robillard@umdbk.com
22 comments Log in to Comment
They continue to build new and unnecessary buildings. They continue to hire more and more people. The way they are running the place is just not sustainable. The people who will suffer the most are those who can least afford it and who are least responsible for the budget problems.
Not Mote.
Not Ann Wylie who felt strongly that EVERYONE should be furloughed.
HINT: NO. Let them eat cake.
And the beholder is Mote himself and all of his assistants with their six-figure salaries.
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