The Governor’s Office has put in place multiple guidelines to facilitate budget cuts across the state, including at all UNC system schools.
But the University has not decided impose a strict hiring freeze at this time.
According to a press release from Chancellor James Oblinger, the governor’s instructions include a hiring freeze, but the University has been given an exception for the time being. The leadership team is currently considering removing that exception and instituting a freeze, Oblinger said in the press release, but for now the freeze is not in place.
Imposing a hiring freeze would not impact student organizations, such as those under the umbrella of The Center for Student Leadership, Ethics & Public Service, Vice Chancellor or Finance and Business Charles Leffler said.
“Positions that are funded by student fees and other non-appropriated sources, would not be directly impacted,” Leffler said. “However, we are cautioning all university departments to be thoughtful in any expenditure made at this time and use good judgment regardless of funding source.”
The University has implemented a set of guidelines for the hiring of faculty set out by the Office of State Budget and Management to account for the ultimate goal of reducing the budget by 7 percent, the release continued.
In the meantime, the guidelines imposed on spending restrictions for all state appropriated funds to remain in effect until further notice.
According to the guidelines, the hiring of faculty positions directly related to classroom instruction is permitted (both tenure-track and non-tenure-track faculty positions), using the normal approval process. The chancellor, vice chancellor or a dean have to approve any new personal service and fixed term contracts.
Additionally, Leffler said the University has a plan in place for up to a 7 percent reduction this year.
“We have been asked for 6 percent currently, slightly less than other state agencies,” Leffler said. “If the state requires a more than 7 percent [reduction], we may have to increase the restrictions, but we will work to avoid additional impact on the campus units.”
Certain positions have been targeted for termination, according to the state’s rules, but specific positions have not been released at this time. Due to the challenges of budget cuts, Interim Dean of the College of Humanities and Social Science Jeffery Braden, CHASS had to cut over one thousand class seats.
“We also froze all of our new faculty positions and were the first college to do so,” Braden said.
Braden also said while the administration absorbed much of the cuts, CHASS could not give back enough money.
“We cut as much as we could, we let some teachers go. Then we had to cancel some class sections,” Braden said.
CHASS is also in the process of making permanent cuts, which Braden said will mean that many elective classes will be the first to go to ensure that classes that are required for degrees are protected.
In trying to determine other ways of cutting without losing classes, Kenneth Zagacki, head of the communication department, pointed out the flexibility his department and others have when it comes to teachers.
“Our departments has had to place more graduate students in the classrooms as teachers then we have had to do in the past,” Zagacki said.
Students are already seeing the effects of the shuffling of graduate students into teaching roles.
“My 400-level math class is being taught by a graduate student, which is pretty unusual,” Ashley Walls, a junior in mathematics, said.
Despite the strict guidelines, economic anxiety and the possibility of a hiring freeze, the Board of Governors strongly advocated the hiring of 150 additional faculty to the College of Engineering by the year 2011, according to a budget priorities recommendation made last November.
In a memo to deans and other administration from Provost Larry Nielsen and Leffler, the University plans to remain focused on the challenges that lay ahead.
“While this immediate budget crisis is focused on the current 2008-09 fiscal year, it is a prelude to the budget challenges that face the Governor and General Assembly as they work on crafting the 2009-11 budget,” the memo stated.
The two are also soliciting suggestions from faculty and students for “major cost saving ideas from any component of the University.”
The University has published a question and answer page on Budget Central, the new Web site set up by the administration to inform faculty, staff and students about the ongoing budget issues at ncsu.edu/budget.
