Yesterday, Governor Schwarzenegger issued an Executive Order to reduce state costs through unpaid furloughs for state workers. He calls for a cut of 2 days a month (a 10% pay cut). He has asked CSU and UC to do the same, although he cannot mandate this directly.
The full Executive Order is available at:
The part relevant to UC reads: “It is requested that other entities of State government not under my direct executive authority, including the California Public Utilities Commission, the University of California, the California State University, California Community Colleges, the legislative branch (including the Legislative Counsel Bureau), and judicial branch, implement similar or other mitigation measures to achieve budget and cash savings for the current and next fiscal year.”
There are a variety of reasons why the proposed furlough program is inappropriate for UC: UC only receives a portion of its budget from the state — what level of cut would be the UC equivalent of 10% cuts to programs fully funded by the state? How do the furloughs apply to faculty who are already essentially on furlough part of the year, e.g. on 9 month or 11 month or 11.5 month appointments? The furlough is sold as a reduction in work (days worked) for a reduction in pay, would faculty workloads be reduced? Would there be a 10 percent reduction of the overhead faculty pay on grants since the staff support etc is not in place for those days?
It seems clear that UC will not be able to make the same cuts the Governor is making to other state programs. But the Governor’s order gives UC flexibility in how it makes the cuts, so long as they save as much money: “similar or other mitigation measures to achieve budget and cash savings…” The DFA and CUCFA will be communicating with UCOP to find out how UC proposes to deal with this issue.