UMass Amherst will place about 780 staff on "indefinite furlough” as it deals with a budget deficit caused by COVID-19 and efforts to stop its spread.
“Our staff give so much of themselves to advance the mission of the university, to serve our students, to support our research and to make the world a better place,” the school's chancellor, Kumble Subbaswamy, said in a letter to the campus on Thursday. “These staff reductions are an absolute last resort and the result of agonizing decisions.”
Many of the employees affected by the announcement work in the residence and dining halls, while only a fraction of the student body is now allowed to live on campus, due to COVID-19 restrictions.
“With very few students here, there is not related work for many people, and it cannot be done remotely,” UMass Amherst spokesman Ed Blaguszewski said in an interview. “And the budget deficit is significant.”
UMass Amherst is projecting a nearly $169 million deficit. Subbaswamy said that includes about $67 million in lost revenue from housing and dining services, and a more than $30 million reduction in expected tuition.
The furloughs, which take effect September 13, will impact about half the membership of AFSCME Local 1776. In addition to about 780 members losing all of their hours, roughly another 80 will see their hours reduced, according to the union.
The local’s president, LeeAnn Robinson, said union officials were "forced into" accepting the furloughs to preserve health benefits.
“We were told that if we did not accept ‘temporary’ furloughs our members would be laid off and lose all benefits,” Robinson wrote, in a message posted to Facebook. “Once again the University has chosen to solve its financial crisis on the backs of its most vulnerable lowest paid workers.”
Blaguszewski defended the furloughs as an alternative to outright layoffs.
“And what that does is it provides the opportunity for employees still to have health insurance, and provide the opportunity for us to revisit, to see where we stand in the spring semester,” he said. “And we’re hoping we’re going to be able to bring people back in the spring semester.”
UMass Amherst is working on deals with other unions that could affect an additional 450 employees.
“We are hopeful that an agreement can be reached and that the number of permanent layoffs, both [union and non-union], can be minimized,” Subbaswamy said in his letter.
Still, Subbaswamy added, those “personnel actions” only go so far, leaving the school still $20 million in the red.
“We will continue to forcefully advocate with the state and federal governments for support to help stabilize the campus budget and prevent more personnel cuts to make up that deficit,” Subbaswamy said.
Employee unions, including Local 1776, have urged university leadership to tap its reserves to cover the shortfall. Subbaswamy called that a “common and legitimate question,” but wrote that the reserves were barely large enough now to maintain “a healthy balance sheet.”
“Further, it is unclear when our revenues will return to normal levels,” he said, “so depleting our reserves to avoid short-term pain may imperil our longer-term stability.”
Disclosure: Some New England Public Media employees are members of unions at UMass Amherst that are currently negotiating with university leadership.
This report includes information from the State House News Service.
