Nov 23, 2009 | 06:07
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Aug 27, 2009
Faculty get answers on furloughs, other consequences of budget
Faculty with questions about furlough days and broader issues on the budget got some answers at a town hall meeting Wednesday, August 26, from UCLA Academic Senate Chair Michael Goldstein and Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Scott Waugh. About 200 faculty attended the meeting at the Faculty Center. The furlough program begins Sept. 1.
One question that has divided faculty throughout the UC system has been whether they would be allowed to reduce their teaching days as part of their furlough days. Many faculty members felt that reducing their teaching days would be the most direct way of making the public aware of UC's dire circumstances and feel the pain of budget cuts. Others took an opposing view. And many felt furloughs are a fiction, an overlay on what is really a salary-reduction plan.
UCLA faculty took a more "nuanced position," Goldstein explained. They believed that furlough days should have an impact on teaching, but that it should be "left up to individual faculty and departments to use in ways that would contribute to the quality of the educational experience," he said.
But after wide-ranging consultation, faculty polls on some campuses and input from the systemwide Academic Senate, executive vice chancellors and chancellors, the Office of the President (OP) informed faculty leaders last week that they must take furlough days in ways that will not impact teaching.
"There will be no impact on teaching days," Goldstein said.
Replacing cuts with grant money or consulting work
One question that has divided faculty throughout the UC system has been whether they would be allowed to reduce their teaching days as part of their furlough days. Many faculty members felt that reducing their teaching days would be the most direct way of making the public aware of UC's dire circumstances and feel the pain of budget cuts. Others took an opposing view. And many felt furloughs are a fiction, an overlay on what is really a salary-reduction plan. UCLA faculty took a more "nuanced position," Goldstein explained. They believed that furlough days should have an impact on teaching, but that it should be "left up to individual faculty and departments to use in ways that would contribute to the quality of the educational experience," he said.
But after wide-ranging consultation, faculty polls on some campuses and input from the systemwide Academic Senate, executive vice chancellors and chancellors, the Office of the President (OP) informed faculty leaders last week that they must take furlough days in ways that will not impact teaching.
"There will be no impact on teaching days," Goldstein said.
Replacing cuts with grant money or consulting work
OP has also decided that faculty can use their furlough days to consult, in addition to the 39 consulting days per year already allowed by UC policy. But that may not help the majority of faculty who do not have the opportunity to consult, one faculty member pointed out.
The question about whether faculty members can use grant money to backfill income lost because of furlough days is still outstanding, but an answer from OP will be e-mailed by the Academic Senate to all faculty early next week, Goldstein said.
Waugh cleared up other questions faculty had about compensation. To faculty who received a merit increase on July 1, he explained that the salary cut will be based on their pre-July 1 salary. "Summer ninths" — additional compensation amounting to one-ninth of a faculty member's annual salary awarded during the summer in recognition of additional responsibilities or for retention purposes — will be based on a faculty member's pre-cut salary and will not be affected by the salary reduction.
In response to another question, Waugh explained that UCLA cannot use overhead funds — the funding provided by the government that pays for services, utilities, facilities and other necessities — to make up for salary reductions.
"It's not as if that money is there, available for use," Waugh said. Most of it goes into paying utilities, rebuilding and refurbishing campus facilities, and supporting other research costs to provide researchers what they need to do their work.
"The decisions that have been and are going to be made are extraordinarily painful," Waugh acknowledged. "If you look at state funding on our campus, over 75 percent of that funding is in salaries. And a huge portion of that is in faculty salaries."
Political realities
The furlough days were announced in July as OP was scrambling to figure out how to deal with an $800 million hole in state funding that suddenly opened up in the wake of the May election when voters rejected the budget plan cobbled together by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the legislature. UCLA has to come up with $131 million, Waugh said. "Salary reductions will bring us somewhere between $35 million and $36 million. It will help us get through this year. But that still leaves us with another $100 million to cut."
If UC had allowed faculty to take their teaching days as furlough days, the impact on students would have been devastating at a time when student fees are rising. "The thinking of the EVCs [executive vice chancellors] and the chancellors across the system — and I agreed with this — was that the political price we would pay for this would simply be too high," Waugh said, by infuriating the public and lawmakers.
"We understand how aggravated, annoyed and hurt financially faculty, as well as staff, feel," the executive vice chancellor said. "It's an unfortunate situation, but balancing the potential costs and benefits, we concluded that it was better to say, 'No. Not on teaching days.' I fully understand … your desire to be able to demonstrate that there is hurt on the part of faculty … but I don't think that the best way to do that is by taking teaching days as furlough days."
Students and their parents are already feeling the impact of budget cuts, with class offerings down about 10 percent and class sizes going up. It may take students longer to graduate; they may have to take summer classes to do it. And student fees are going up at the same time they will have more trouble getting classes.
The year ahead
Goldstein urged faculty members not to focus on the furloughs, but to look farther down the road to the difficult job ahead for faculty and administrators — taking a hard, very systematic and cold look at all the academic programs to decide how UCLA will shrink because it no longer has the funding to support everything.
"Already we can see what the situation is going to be next year," said Goldstein. "And it's going to be much worse than this year." One-time stimulus money, which helped backfill the systemwide gap this year with $640 million, will be gone. The state is already estimating that the deficit for next year will hit the $6 billion to $7 billion mark.
And while UC President Mark G. Yudof recently said that he will try to end the furloughs after one year, campus administrators and faculty will be working together to make organizational and structural changes to the curricula, reduce majors, trim requirements for majors and cut state-funded research projects back by around 50 percent.
"We want to protect what UCLA is, and the only way we can do that is by making some changes," said Waugh, who asked the faculty for patience and for ideas. "We want to make those changes, as destructive as they may seem, in a way that will be constructive for the institution as a whole."
Goldstein, who will soon be handing over leadership of the Senate to Professor Robin Garrell, said the Academic Senate will be heavily involved in the process to reorganize the teaching program. "Let me say, we have with Scott and Gene [Chancellor Block] people who want to work with the Senate on this. … There is no division on that. The problem is in the practicality of doing it in a timely way, and getting people to take an institution-wide view of things. That is really a difficult barrier to overcome.
"But we are trying to move forward on this as rapidly as possible," said Goldstein, who reminded faculty that this is not the time to cut back on service commitments to their departments or to the university.
"It's time to take them more seriously than ever," he said.
The question about whether faculty members can use grant money to backfill income lost because of furlough days is still outstanding, but an answer from OP will be e-mailed by the Academic Senate to all faculty early next week, Goldstein said.
Waugh cleared up other questions faculty had about compensation. To faculty who received a merit increase on July 1, he explained that the salary cut will be based on their pre-July 1 salary. "Summer ninths" — additional compensation amounting to one-ninth of a faculty member's annual salary awarded during the summer in recognition of additional responsibilities or for retention purposes — will be based on a faculty member's pre-cut salary and will not be affected by the salary reduction.
In response to another question, Waugh explained that UCLA cannot use overhead funds — the funding provided by the government that pays for services, utilities, facilities and other necessities — to make up for salary reductions.
"It's not as if that money is there, available for use," Waugh said. Most of it goes into paying utilities, rebuilding and refurbishing campus facilities, and supporting other research costs to provide researchers what they need to do their work.
"The decisions that have been and are going to be made are extraordinarily painful," Waugh acknowledged. "If you look at state funding on our campus, over 75 percent of that funding is in salaries. And a huge portion of that is in faculty salaries."
Political realities
The furlough days were announced in July as OP was scrambling to figure out how to deal with an $800 million hole in state funding that suddenly opened up in the wake of the May election when voters rejected the budget plan cobbled together by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the legislature. UCLA has to come up with $131 million, Waugh said. "Salary reductions will bring us somewhere between $35 million and $36 million. It will help us get through this year. But that still leaves us with another $100 million to cut."
If UC had allowed faculty to take their teaching days as furlough days, the impact on students would have been devastating at a time when student fees are rising. "The thinking of the EVCs [executive vice chancellors] and the chancellors across the system — and I agreed with this — was that the political price we would pay for this would simply be too high," Waugh said, by infuriating the public and lawmakers.
"We understand how aggravated, annoyed and hurt financially faculty, as well as staff, feel," the executive vice chancellor said. "It's an unfortunate situation, but balancing the potential costs and benefits, we concluded that it was better to say, 'No. Not on teaching days.' I fully understand … your desire to be able to demonstrate that there is hurt on the part of faculty … but I don't think that the best way to do that is by taking teaching days as furlough days."
Students and their parents are already feeling the impact of budget cuts, with class offerings down about 10 percent and class sizes going up. It may take students longer to graduate; they may have to take summer classes to do it. And student fees are going up at the same time they will have more trouble getting classes.
The year ahead
Goldstein urged faculty members not to focus on the furloughs, but to look farther down the road to the difficult job ahead for faculty and administrators — taking a hard, very systematic and cold look at all the academic programs to decide how UCLA will shrink because it no longer has the funding to support everything.
"Already we can see what the situation is going to be next year," said Goldstein. "And it's going to be much worse than this year." One-time stimulus money, which helped backfill the systemwide gap this year with $640 million, will be gone. The state is already estimating that the deficit for next year will hit the $6 billion to $7 billion mark.
And while UC President Mark G. Yudof recently said that he will try to end the furloughs after one year, campus administrators and faculty will be working together to make organizational and structural changes to the curricula, reduce majors, trim requirements for majors and cut state-funded research projects back by around 50 percent.
"We want to protect what UCLA is, and the only way we can do that is by making some changes," said Waugh, who asked the faculty for patience and for ideas. "We want to make those changes, as destructive as they may seem, in a way that will be constructive for the institution as a whole."
Goldstein, who will soon be handing over leadership of the Senate to Professor Robin Garrell, said the Academic Senate will be heavily involved in the process to reorganize the teaching program. "Let me say, we have with Scott and Gene [Chancellor Block] people who want to work with the Senate on this. … There is no division on that. The problem is in the practicality of doing it in a timely way, and getting people to take an institution-wide view of things. That is really a difficult barrier to overcome.
"But we are trying to move forward on this as rapidly as possible," said Goldstein, who reminded faculty that this is not the time to cut back on service commitments to their departments or to the university.
"It's time to take them more seriously than ever," he said.
To read a list of frequently asked questions on the furlough program, see this website. To see how furloughs will impact UC medical centers, go to this website. And keep up with the latest news posted on UCLA's budget page.
