Ohio University - Postponed raises, layoffs considered as university bleeds red ink

2005-04-04
By Nick Claussen
Athens NEWS Associate Editor

Ohio University likely will delay and may even eliminate raises for faculty and staff this year. Officials are warning that more layoffs may lie in the future, too, in a continuing effort to address a budget shortfall.The university is trying to plan for a shortage of $12 million in its budget, and delaying the salaries is one way to deal with it. OU officials are also examining tuition fees for next year and how that will affect the budget, but no decision has been made on how much to increase tuition. (See separate article in today's Athens NEWS, this page.)OU last week eliminated 17 administrative and staff positions in order to save money, and for now no other positions are scheduled to be eliminated. At least one OU official, though, said that further layoffs are possible because of the budget problems.Larry Corrigan, interim vice president for facilities and finance, updated the OU Board of Trustees' Audit, Finance, Facilities and Investments Committee Thursday about the budget shortfall and the proposal to delay salary increases.Faculty and staff were set to receive 3 percent across-the-board raises in July, but in the current budget proposal those raises now have been delayed until at least January, Corrigan said. The delay in raises would be for all faculty and staff, including union employees, according to Corrigan. After the meeting, he explained that faculty members usually do not receive their raises until October, so the July raises actually would have been early for them.

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