Copyright Baton Rouge Advocate
Professors, coaches and police officers are among those being laid off from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette while school officials try to make up for a $25 million deficit. A list of 56 jobs that the university is cutting, which The Acadiana Advocate received through a public records request, shows that they include workers across a wide array of departments, from academic counselors to assistant coaches. Of those being laid off, their annual salaries ranged from $16,153 to $171,600. The eliminated positions should lead to $5 million in savings for the university. A new website that UL unveiled this week about the budget crisis says they’ve made enough headway to offset $20.5 million in the deficit, with roughly $5 million left to go. Interim President Jaimie Hebert announced last month in an email to faculty and staff that the budget deficit he inherited required cuts to all divisions through a combination of position eliminations, retirements, resignations and reassignments. Of the 70 affected positions, 51 people — a mix of civil service and non-civil service employees — were laid off. The remaining 19 were reassigned. When the budget deficit came to public light in September, UL also eliminated six additional positions, closed the Office of Sustainability and Community Engagement and restructured the Offices of Communications and Marketing and Auxiliary Services. Hebert also asked university departments to cut 10% from their operating budgets, and Academic Affairs to cut 5% to limit impact on instruction. "These personnel changes were not made lightly," Hebert wrote in an Oct. 23 email. "They came after thorough consideration by division vice presidents, other university administrators and supervisors of needs and priorities. "These decisions are rooted in the responsibility we all share to make choices that strengthen the university's future.” Jason Maloy, a political scientist and president of the UL chapter of the American Association of University Professors, said faculty and staff have longed for years for more transparency and to be included in the decision-making process on campus. “You need not fix the budget mess with the same exclusive, top-down mechanisms that got us into the budget mess,” Maloy said. “There should be regular faculty and staff and student representatives in some kind of advisory body that consults with the VP of finance and with the interim president as they’re making these decisions. “We’ve heard some good intentions, but we’ve not really seen any progress on that so far.” The positions being cut at UL include: Ten people from Academic Affairs, including: A nursing professor An education instructor An English as a second language specialist for international students A coordinator for the honors program An academic success coach A distance learning employee A director of university connection A director of the Office of First Year Experience A director of student development and academic outreach A planning analyst Three employees of the Sustainability Office An administrative assistant One person from the Auxiliary division was laid off: a director of the athletics business office. The four people laid off from the Student Affairs division were all police officers. Other cut-cutting efforts include ending contracts with local hotels to house students, adjusting the campus shuttle system, restructuring graduation ceremonies into a single-day format, improving emergency efficiency and other measures that Hebert has not yet outlined. UL officials say their next goals are to address the remaining structural deficit and to tackle recurring debt of about $25 million. “To do so, the university has established a target of $15 million in additional reductions over the coming months — enough to erase the remaining deficit and begin resolving the first $10 million of recurring debt,” a statement on the website said.
