Questions during the Oct. 15 Staff Open Forum included: “What guarantee do we have that furloughs will not extend past August of 2010?”

Chancellor Linda Katehi said she and all the UC chancellors have told UC President Mark G. Yudof, and he has agreed, that if the furloughs last longer than a year, “our institutions will not be able to sustain the quality, in many ways.”

But, while Yudof and the chancellors want to see the furloughs come to an end next August, there is no guarantee the state will fulfill its financial obligation to UC. If the state finds itself $60 billion in the red again and withholds another $800 million from UC, Katehi said, “I don’t know what we’ll do.”

As for this year’s furloughs, Associate Vice Chancellor Karen Hull, who is in charge of Human Resources, reminded employees who are required to take 11 to 26 days of unpaid time, corresponding to pay cuts of 4 percent to 10 percent: Use your furlough days or lose them. “We really want you to have that time off,” she said.

She also addressed the recent revision of the campus closure plan — a revision that eliminated the Dec. 18-23 closure period, reflecting the campus’s historical pattern. She reminded that departments can still close during that period, if work conditions permit.

However, if your unit will stay open, and you had already made plans — based on the original campus closure dates — to take vacation or furlough time from Dec. 18 to 23, you can still do so.

The revision also dealt with the fact that most unions had not agreed to the furlough plan — and what their members should do on campus closure days. Originally, UC Davis officials said represented employees should take vacation time, compensatory time or unpaid leave.

Now, represented employees have the option of arranging alternative work assignments.

As for nonrepresented employees, they are strongly encouraged to use the seven remaining campus closure dates — Dec. 28-30, March 24-25 and June 14-15 — as furlough days.

Regardless of the unions’ stand on furloughs, the campus needs to generate payroll savings from represented employees — savings that are equal to what the campus would generate if the employees agreed to furloughs. As previously announced, in the alternative salary reduction plan, the campus will do this by ordering, at a minimum, temporary layoffs or reductions in time.

Hull pointed out that employees who are subject to furloughs will see no adverse impact to their pension calculations, vacation and sick leave accrual, nor health and welfare benefits.

Employees subject to temporary layoffs and reductions in time, on the other hand, will see reduced service credit for retirement calculations, prorated vacation and sick leave accrual, and possible impacts to health and welfare benefits eligibility.

Union employees can work around this by signing up for START: Staff and Academic Reduction in Time, a voluntary program that will substitute for temporary layoffs or mandatory reductions in time, provided an employee’s START reduction is equal to or greater than what the employee would have faced under the furlough program.

And, indeed, Hull said, Human Resources has seen “a dramatic increase” in START applications.

More information on START, and a comparison of START and the alternative salary reduction plan: hr.ucdavis.edu (click on “HR Hot Topics”).