Layoffs, other reductions to help KU meet $7.1 million budget cut

LAWRENCE -- The University of Kansas today announced a series of budget cuts to help absorb a 3 percent, or $7.1 million, reduction to its state-funded budget for the new fiscal year.

The measures include laying off staff and eliminating vacant positions, reducing operating budgets, closing or reorganizing units, and initiating a voluntary summer leave-without-pay program. In addition, for the first time since 1972, the university will be granting no regular salary increases. No other Kansas regents university will give regular salary increases this year either.

The cuts are due to the reduction of the university's state general fund appropriation for fiscal year 2003 and the state's failure to add to the base budgets of all regents universities the funds necessary to cover salary increases for fiscal year 2002 and rising health insurance costs.

"These cuts are painful, especially those that involve the elimination of jobs," said Chancellor Robert Hemenway. "But difficult times call for difficult decisions.

"We are making strategic, not across-the-board, cuts. These focused cuts allow for administrative efficiencies and restructuring, and they protect productive research areas and important teaching units."

On the Lawrence campus, at least 22 filled positions will be affected, and 32 vacant positions will be eliminated.

Several research units on the Lawrence campus are being significantly reduced or phased out over the next year. The Kansas Geological Survey will phase out a statistical research unit. State funding for the Paleontological Institute will be eliminated. The Museum of Anthropology will close its public exhibition space. The museum's collections will remain available for educational and research activities, and curatorial work carrying out provisions of the Native American graves repatriation law will continue. Summer programs currently under way and the fall Lawrence Indian Arts show will go on as scheduled.

In instances where employee positions are eliminated, appropriate state and university regulations on notification will be followed.

"We will be sensitive to the needs of these staff members and will do everything we can to assist them," Hemenway said.

The university will help employees in their efforts to find other employment within the university or elsewhere. Additional employee transition assistance, such as job counseling, will be offered through KU's Human Resources department.

Layoffs and the elimination of vacant positions were announced in March at the university's medical center campus in Kansas City, Kan., and School of Medicine campus in Wichita. The medical center campus closed the Physical Therapy Program in Pittsburg and the nursing neonatal intensive care master's degree program, reduced library hours by two hours daily, made significant cuts in operating and equipment funds, reduced the number of clinical outreach airplane flights within the state and eliminated 35 positions.

In the support services area on the Lawrence campus, reductions will affect one limited-term employee, whose contract will not be renewed, and five employees whose positions will end due to the closing of an asbestos abatement unit. The university will contract with outside firms for asbestos abatement but will continue its monitoring and compliance role at anticipated cost savings. In addition, two clerical staff positions will be eliminated.

"As difficult as these reductions are, they are consistent with recent warnings from the governor that we prepare for midyear reductions. We will continue to evaluate our operations for further cost-cutting measures throughout the coming fiscal year," said Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost David Shulenburger.

On Friday the Lawrence campus announced the creation of a voluntary summer leave-without-pay program to help units handle fiscal constraints during a natural break in the academic year. In addition to regular paid leave, the program gives staff members who want flexible work schedules in the summer the option to apply for a minimum of two weeks of leave without pay, pending permission from their supervisors and KU Human Resources.