UMaine Details Expenditure Adjustments to Meet Budget Shortfall
Contact: Joe Carr at (207) 581-3571
Note: President Kennedy and Vice President Waldron will be available at UMaine’s Buchanan Alumni House between 1:15-3 p.m. on Friday for interviews. Please call Joe Carr at 581-3571 to scedule in-person or telephone interviews.
ORONO — In response to unprecedented budget challenges, the University of Maine has reduced its expenditures by $8.8 million for the year beginning July 1, 2009. The impact on personnel is significant, with 32 layoffs and another 31 full-time positions affected by reduced work hours. In addition, 77 other positions were held vacant for elimination, bringing the total number of affected positions to 140. This brings UMaine’s three-year total of eliminated faculty, professional and hourly positions to over 200, equal to a workforce reduction over this time period of approximately 10 percent.
In addition to the personnel actions, which reduce the university’s salaries and benefits budget by $5.8 million, UMaine department managers have taken dozens of measures that will reduce operating costs by a total of at least $1.7 million through the elimination of operating expenses including supplies, service, maintenance, travel, equipment and other expenses.
UMaine will realize the balance of the $8.8 million in savings ($1.3 million) through administrative efficiencies, mostly related to the management of energy costs through improved purchasing mechanisms and conservation.
“We have developed this budget through a painstaking, thorough process aimed at preserving UMaine’s core educational capacity to the greatest possible extent,” says UMaine President Robert Kennedy. “These budget reductions will affect every part of UMaine’s operation in some significant way but we have worked strategically to find ways to maintain excellence and continue providing service to our students and our state. More than ever, Maine needs a strong flagship state university. That is why we continue to focus on sustainable ways to continue the university’s momentum within the current budget realities.”
UMaine’s total budget for the next fiscal year, which begins July 1 (Fiscal Year 2010), is $248 million. A number of economic factors, including reduced state appropriation and declining returns on investments, have converged to create the structural budget gap being addressed by these expenditure reductions.
The largest number of layoffs comes from UMaine’s professional (salaried) staff, affecting 15 positions, 10 of which were at Cutler Health Center. UMaine entered a public-private partnership earlier this year, transferring the center’s operations to a private healthcare provider. Five of the layoffs involve people in the faculty category; including the four coaches whose jobs were eliminated with UMaine discontinued its volleyball and men’s soccer programs. The other faculty layoff affected a person whose primary assignment was in Cooperative Extension. The remaining 12 layoffs involve hourly-paid employees, including 8 who were on the Cutler Health Center staff.
The work-year reductions affect employees in nearly 20 UMaine units, converting a total of 31 full-time jobs to part-time, most of them now ten months but some half time or three-quarters time.
The 77 unfilled vacancies include 43 faculty lines (including adjunct faculty), 17 professional staff positions and 17 hourly positions.
“I truly regret the toll on our valued colleagues,” Kennedy says. “Every single person affected has worked hard, most of them for many years, to serve our students and make UMaine the institution that it is today. UMaine is a community made up of wonderful people, and it is difficult to take these actions which adversely affect so many.”
Those who manage UMaine colleges, departments, divisions and schools have also eliminated or reduced dozens of services and taken other measures to help meet the budget target. Examples include discontinuation of certain outreach programs, the conversion of units from base budget funding to funding from outside grants and contracts, the reduction or elimination of some publications, and reduced hours of operation in some units. In addition, clerical and office support will be sharply reduced in several areas.
“These budget reductions, while difficult, were taken to ensure a balanced budget for the University of Maine,” says Janet Waldron, UMaine’s vice president for administration and finance.