By Kyle Swanson, Daily News Editor
Published March 30, 2010
Though it’s been a routine practice in past years for the University to lay off lecturers due to a lack of interest in certain classes, this year some units within the University are considering laying off lecturers strictly as a cost-savings measure.
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The layoffs are one option being considered by budget officers in some LSA departments, who are preparing responses to scenarios that involve cutting 1, 3 and 5 percent from their unit’s budget for the next fiscal year. Such exercises are normal, but the means by which some are suggesting meeting the potential cuts in unit funding are not as routine.
Asked about the situation in an interview with The Michigan Daily last week, University Provost Teresa Sullivan said she didn’t have central plans to lay off lecturers.
“Right now our plans don’t include — from this office — they don’t include layoffs,” Sullivan said. “But we’re a very decentralized place, and what we end up doing is giving each unit a budget, and they have to live within that budget.”
Sullivan said because of this decentralization, she couldn’t guarantee that no lecturers would be laid off.
“I can’t guarantee that nobody anywhere will ever lay anybody off,” Sullivan said. “I can assure you that whatever we do, we’ll follow the (Lectures Employee Organization) contract.”
However, Sullivan said University administrators would do everything possible to cut in other areas before cutting faculty.
“I would say that we are a human capitol organization, and the reason we don’t look at layoffs first is that when we lay people off we don’t just cut costs, we cut assets,” Sullivan said. “That’s not something that we want to do, but there aren’t a lot of places to cut in many programs.”
According to Sullivan, approximately 70 percent of the University’s budget is allocated to personnel costs, while only 30 percent of the budget is spent on materials and other non-personnel items.
However, Sullivan did indicate that if the state-funding picture continues to be as bleak as in the past, it could result in layoffs.
“In the long run, it’s going to depend on what happens to our sources of revenue, including our state appropriations,” she said.
And while lecturer layoffs are possible and currently exist in the 1-, 3- and 5-percent budget reduction plans being prepared in some LSA departments, no final decisions have been made yet, University spokesman Rick Fitzgerald told the Daily in an interview last week.
“This is simply a possibility, and no decisions have been made,” Fitzgerald said. “There could be layoffs, there might not be layoffs. These budgets are not in final form yet.”
However, Fitzgerald said he believes what is making this year’s situation different is the ongoing negotiations between LEO and the University.
“There were some lecturer layoffs last year too. This is not an unprecedented possibility,” Fitzgerald said. “I think what’s different this year is that you’ve got a LEO negotiation going on at the same time.”
However, Adjunct Professor Joe Walls, who serves as a spokesman for LEO, said the difference isn’t the ongoing negotiations but rather the motivation behind the possible cuts.
Walls said layoffs occur every year, but that lecturers are typically laid off as a result of students' changing interest in classes.
“Layoffs occur, but now the reasons are different,” Walls said. “(It’s) not to have supply and demand match, which is the normal reason … but as a way to reduce expenditures.”
Walls said he has been told that the layoffs are not finalized yet, but that there are concerns about the possibility during a time when the budget has little or no wiggle room.
“No one has said, ‘We’re going to lay people off.’ That’s true,” Walls said.
