BUDGET UPDATE: 11 campus closure days, $10.3 million more in cuts

by Dave Jones
August 28, 2009

The UC Davis administration today (Aug. 28) announced 11 campus closure days in 2009-10—days that will count as unpaid furlough for most employees.

All of the closures will be on noninstructional days. Most of the closures will be around the Christmas-New Year’s break, and the others between winter and spring quarters, and between spring quarter and Summer Session I.

Essential services will continue to operate at minimal staffing. But, for all intents and purposes, the campus will be closed for business. These furlough days and others are expected to save the campus some $25 million in state general funds in 2009-10.

Also today, UC Davis administrators are advising academic and administrative and academic support units of an additional $10.3 million in budget cuts—over and above the first round of cuts, as assigned earlier this year, and over and above what the units will save as a result of the furloughs.

“Given the magnitude and persistence of the financial challenge that the campus faces, the total 2009-10 budget reductions are assigned permanently effective July 1, 2009.” Chancellor Linda Katehi and Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor Enrique J. Lavernia said in a budget update letter.

The additional cuts:

• Schools, colleges and divisions—$4.8 million, for a total reduction of $14.9 million in 2009-10. This is equivalent to about 5 percent of state general funds, or about 1.5 percent of all expenditures excluding extramural research.

• Administrative and academic support units—$5.5 million, for a total reduction of $16 million in 2009-10. This is equivalent to about 12 percent of state general funds, or about 7.5 percent of all expenditures excluding extramural research.

Initial budget reduction targets for the University Library were consistent with other administrative and academic support units. “However, the programmatic consequences of the reductions were judged to be too severe,” Katehi and Lavernia said.

“Therefore, the 2009-10 reduction targets for the University Library were reduced by 50 percent to ensure that that most critical services are preserved and to enable the library to focus on its efforts on its longer-term restructuring plan.”

Altogether for 2009-10, the campus’s latest budget data show a shortfall of more than $113 million, thanks to decreased funding from the state and fixed costs that continue to go up (utilities and health benefits, for example).

The first round of academic and administrative cuts, coupled with the Board of Regents’ decisions to implement employee furloughs (to save state money) and raise student fees, solved $85 million of the campus’s problem—leaving a $29 million shortfall.

UC Davis is addressing about two thirds of that gap with today's budget cuts and furlough savings from nonstate funds ($9.1 million). Additional, unspecified action still to come is needed to take care of the rest.

The furlough plan

As approved in July by the Board of Regents, the systemwide furlough plan runs for one year, from Sept. 1, 2009, through Aug. 31, 2010.

So far, the furloughs apply only to faculty and nonrepresented staff, and a small number of represented employees; the UC Office of the President continues to negotiate with other unions regarding their participation. If union members do not agree, they will be required to take vacation time or unpaid leave on furlough days.

Generally, if you work full time, you have been assigned from 11 to 26 furlough days, for a corresponding loss in pay of 4 percent to 10 percent; the more you make, the more furlough days you must take. (See chart for the seven salary bands and the corresponding furlough days and pay cuts.)

Each campus is devising its own furlough schedule, including campus closures. UC Davis decided on an 11-day plan because, in general, all calendar-year employees have been assigned at least 11 furlough days. (Members of the senior management group, including chancellors and deans, also are losing pay based on their annual salaries, but are limited to 10 furlough days.)

UC Davis officials announced the following closures:

• Friday, Dec. 18, through Sunday, Jan. 3—This period comprises seven furlough days (Dec. 18, 21, 22, 23, 28, 29 and 30), four holidays (Dec. 24-25 and Dec. 31-Jan. 1) and four weekend days. The winter quarter will begin as scheduled on Jan. 4.

• Wednesday-Sunday, March 24-28—This period comprises two furlough days (March 24-25), one holiday (March 26, Cesar Chavez Day) and one weekend. The spring quarter will begin as scheduled March 29.

Two more furlough days are scheduled for Monday-Tuesday, June 14-15, during the week after spring finals (June 5-10) and commencement (June 11-13). The campus will reopen Wednesday, June 16, and Summer Session I will begin as scheduled on June 21.

Besides salary savings, the closures will save on utility costs: $7,000 to $10,000 per day ($50,000 to $70,000 per week).

‘Leftover’ furlough days

As for your “leftover” furlough days—in excess of the 11 campus closure days—you may be allowed to choose your own dates, subject to supervisory approval, or your unit may plan for its own closure days, which would be in addition to the campuswide closures. Under either scenario, faculty would not take furlough time on teaching days.

Employees will accrue furlough time just like vacation time; in other words, you will receive a specified number of hours per month. And, except during closure periods, you can use your furlough time only after you accrue it. During closure periods, you can use your furlough days before accrural; for example, by December, you will not have accrued seven days of furlough time, but you will still be allowed to take seven furlough days during the Dec. 18-Jan. 3 campus closure.

What happens if you have been assigned fewer than 11 furlough days? This can apply to academic-year employees (who have been assigned from seven to 17 furlough days) and part-time employees (each of whom has been assigned furlough days in proportion to his or her full-time equivalent salary).

In such cases, the campus closure days will count for as many furlough days as you are supposed to take, and, after that, you must take vacation time, compensatory time or unpaid leave for the other closure days.

For payroll purposes, it makes no difference when you take your furlough days: Your pay will be reduced in even amounts for 12 months (starting with your check that is due around Oct. 1), even in months when you take no furlough days. (For employees who are paid biweekly, the reductions will begin with the first full pay period in September.)

And remember this: If you do not take your furlough days by Aug. 31 next year, you lose them.

Instructional vs. noninstructional days

UC Davis administrators worked with the campus’s Academic Senate in devising the campus closure schedule.

If the senate had its way, some of the closures would have fallen on instructional days—as favored by 82 percent of the 426 members of the senate’s Davis Division who participated in an online poll. Senate divisions on other campuses also favored shutdowns on instructional days.

But Lawrence H. Pitts, interim provost for executive vice president of the UC system, in an Aug. 21 letter announcing UCOP’s decision against closure days on instructional days, wrote: “I believe that we must do everything we can to ensure that the students continue to receive all their instruction.

“Asking the faculty to carry a full instruction load during furloughs is a large request, but in my mind is justified by the university’s paramount teaching mission.”

Pitts said research is permitted on furlough days, but for many faculty this extra research will not be remunerated unless they have grants in which there are funds that can be reallocated to pay for increased effort. And since furlough days are not “service days,” they can be used for outside professional activities that may be remunerated.

Pitts said the furloughs brought on by the state’s “severe underfunding” to the university “are causing significant problems” for all employees:

• For faculty, “who have restrictions on research and service as well as increased teaching workloads.”

• For staff, “who have fewer days to do their work and sometimes fewer colleagues to help them.”

• For administrators, “who have reduced staff and budgets to accomplish their complex tasks.”

All this, Pitts said, “on top of lower salaries for everyone.”

“Students, too, will suffer the effects of the underfunding—larger and fewer classes, and increased fees, as were imposed for this fall instruction period, among other burdens,” he added.

Limited exemptions

The regents authorized few exemptions from furloughs.

You are included even if you participate in START (Staff and Academic Reduction in Time), but only if your pay reduction under the voluntary START program does not equal or exceed the pay reduction that you would be subject to under the furlough plan. (If it does not, you will be asked to boost your time off under START, or cancel your START contract and go with the furlough plan, or perhaps take some furlough days.)

And, one more wrinkle for START participants: You will need to take vacation time, compensatory time off or unpaid leave during campus closures. Or, you can work with your supervisor to adjust your work schedule so that your time off coincides with campus closures.

The furlough plan exempts employees who receive 100 percent research funding. Also, UCOP has decided to give partial exemptions to employees who are paid in part with research funding; individual exemptions would be equal to the percentage of the employee’s research funding.

In the case of furlough-exempt employees, their supervisors will determine if work will be assigned to these employees during campus closures. If not, the employees must take vacation or unpaid leave.

The Board of Regents also exempted medical center employees from the furlough program, but specified that the medical centers must generate equivalent cost savings through other mechanisms. Indeed, UC Davis Medical Center employees have been advised that they will be expected to assume larger workloads as the center eliminates vacant positions, delays hiring, reduces overtime and implements other salary-savings measures.

UC Davis officials acknowledged that they had received "a number of requests to exempt certain faculty and staff from participating in the furlough-pay reduction program. "To avoid disparities across the campus community, we do not anticipate approving exemptions to the pay reduction-furlough program in addition to those specified by the regents and President Yudof," Katehi and Lavernia wrote in their budget letter this week.

"Furloughs present difficult operational consequences in every unit. Therefore, it is very difficult to ensure fairness and reasonably administer this program if we approve further exceptions.”