Higher education job cuts may hamper quality

More than 900 college and university employees, including faculty, staff and administrators, have lost their jobs since the Legislature imposed a 9 percent budget cut earlier this year. The loss, officials say, may be affecting the quality of education for thousands of Utahns.

When the Legislature issued the cuts for higher education, it was estimated that for every percent budgets were undermined, the system would lose 100 jobs. Utah's Commissioner of Higher Education William Sederburg said if the proposed 17 percent cuts are realized for next year's budget, a total of 1,700 jobs — 800 more — may be on the chopping block. Education officials say that as a result of the cuts some facilities are going without repairs and adjuncts are filling in for full-time faculty in some classrooms.

"We're going to have a tougher time and there will be more involuntary cuts, which are harder to make," he said, adding that "the low-hanging fruit" is much likely easier for schools to pick at.

In the first round of cuts, 223 of the total 919 eliminated jobs were involuntary, "essentially layoffs," said Sederburg, while the majority of the positions cut were satisfied either by employees choosing to take early retirement or eliminating unfilled positions.

Hardest hit, and also the largest employer of faculty and staff among the state's nine public schools, is the University of Utah, which lost 365 positions. Of them, 242 were vacated voluntarily, either by early retirement or attrition, and 123 were involuntarily suspended or eliminated. None were tenured positions, as schools have to first declare a financial exigency before such terminations can take place. A Utah school has yet to do so.

"We didn't drop entire programs," said Paul Brinkman, associate vice president of budget and planning at the U. He said jobs lost were spread across campus, trying to preserve core services and programs but cutting away at the edges, which could ultimately decrease university efficiency.

Of the positions cut statewide, a total of 216 were related to teaching, while 13 executive positions evaporated and 690 were among various support staff positions eliminated.

"If you lose the support staff, you end up asking other people to do things they wouldn't normally do," Brinkman said. "It nibbles away at the normal processing going on and at efficiencies we've built up over time."