"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us..."
Well, Penn State has a budget.
Or, actually it has two budgets, with the possibility of creating a linearly interpolated hybrid budget between the two budgets.
It depends, you see, on whether the Governor Rendell's budget proposal passes, or that of the assembly; or some hideous compromise, as one might expect.
And whether the Department of Education decides to overrule the declaration that the Pennsylvania State University is not actually a public university, what with it not being the State University of Pennsylvania, and therefore actually eligible for federal stimulus funding.
Or not.
There is a pay freeze, we knew that; there will be some layoffs, but nothing drastic yet; campus construction is proceeding frantically this summer, but much of that will slam to a halt as currently committed projects are finished, and there will be little new construction unless there is money specifically budgeted for such projects in separate funding lines;
the best case leads to 4.5% tuition increase (for in-state students at the main campus, satellite campus and out-of-state students have smaller increases); worst case scenario is almost 10% tuition increase.
That is what it takes to claw back $60 million with no notice.
It also burns the university reserve fund, so no more crisis, please.
Hah.
This might tide us over for a year, realistically, then serious cuts get made.
Probably looking at 500-1000 people being let go if the budget situation continues at no worse level; more if things get worse.
Or someone could give us $5-10 billion for the endowment, that might tide us over the hump.
Pretty please.
The University of California budget is also out.
It is bad.
Full transcript here.
Good news is that postdocs and soft-money folks will not take a cut - some sanity managed to percolate upstream through the process.
The bad news is that there is a pay cut.
"Temporary", of course.
Progressively scaled from 4-10% depending on salary, with higher paid taking higher cuts, except of course for senior management - their furlough is limited to 10 days, or ~ 4% - does that mean their pay cut is capped at 4%? And if so, at what seniority?
Is this academic managers (ie staff holding tenure slots seconded to administration), or administrative management?
And, if you want, you can take time off in proportion...
this will re-assure research faculty.
I'm sure.
Interestingly, pension funding will be maintained in proportion to original salary.
That is curious. Is it even legal?
Will "summer salary" be on the "real permanent scale" or pro-rated to the furloughed scale?
Not of course that class days are cut or teaching load reduced.
Nor do I think there will be less committee or service obligation.
More committees and sub-committees and sub-sub-committees, I'd think.
So not a furlough per se; that'd imply a cut in work, with a proportionate cut in pay.
A "hybrid" furlough.
Heh.
This is a cut in pay, with a proportionate cut in time committment, if you decide to take advantage of it, and it doeans't interfere with your duties.
Though, as a wise man noted, it will be useful for people going to job interviews to be able to take time off.
Specially if you have to fly to Europe or something.
This saves UC just under $200 million; another $200 million is expected from increase in student fees (there is, of course, no tuition at UC for in-state); and $300 million will l be absorbed by campuses in cuts (ie layoffs of staff, I presume, nothing else can defer that much outlay - that will be ~ 3000 people gone).
Er, that leaves $100 million unaccounted for - stimulus?
Pixie Dust Ponies?
This is kinda scary, the UC cuts-not-accounted-for in the three draconian measures are larger than the total PSU cuts this year.
We have a long way to go.
Ouch.
Ouch, ouch, ouch.
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No need to be elitist. The California State University system (23 campuses) is hit even harder that the more prestigious UC system, in terms of furloughs, layoffs, drastic reduction of enrollment, and more rapidly rising tuition and fees. And the California Community College system is also decimated. And roughly 250,000 southern California high school students who expected summer school don't get any. And here I am, a Caltech Life Alumnus with a recent California State University-generated Secondary School Teaching Credential, unemployed until at least September.
Well, in Berlin, Germany we had to take a 10% pay cut years ago when Berlin was broke. We also got to reduce our "working time" from 40 hours a week to 38.5.
Have you stopped laughing yet?
We used to get paid 0.2 semester-equivalent hours for advising a thesis. A normal professorship at an engineering college is 18 semester-equivalent hours a semester, at a university 9. (The rest is for "research").
We were also made to advise the first 4 theses for "free", we only get paid for numbers 5 to 9.
There was a clause in there somewhere letting the administrators go back to full pay Jan 1, 2010. Not us, though.
Oh, and they charge us an extra 250 ⬠a year for health benefits, and 10⬠a quarter for doctor/dentist/shrink visits.
But there is still no tuition at Berlin schools, and we get paid 12 months a year (used to get a 13th month salary at Christmas time, man, those were the days").
I'm glad they haven't started introducing American payment schemes...
Be very glad they haven't started the American scheme - I think we will see some surprising monetization of services, including services everyone thought were covered by existing streams of funding...
JvP: I know the CSUs and CCs are being hit even harder, it is simply that I have physically been at UC, both recently and long ago, so I proactively hear more about the UC situation.