The Voluntary Furlough Program
Monday, February 9th, 2009
I wanted to write to provide you some additional direction on our Voluntary Furlough Program.
As you may have read over the weekend or in my Monday Morning Message today, we are instituting a purely voluntary Furlough Program as an additional cost-saving measure.
With UNM facing a potential $12 million in budget reductions next year, I believe we must do all we can to focus on the things that matter most – preparing New Mexico’s young people for good-paying jobs, giving world-class care to our patients and continuing our important research.
The Voluntary Furlough Program is one more element in our effort to save costs.
The most important thing to remember is that the program is completely voluntary. No member of the faculty or staff is required to take part, whatsoever.
This is purely for those employees who choose to participate: perhaps a faculty member who wants time to finish an article or book, or a staff member who needs to spend more time with family and loved ones.
If you’re interested, contact your immediate Supervisor and Department Director, who will ensure that your proposed furlough won’t adversely affect the performance of your unit or put an undue burden on your co-workers.
I’ve decided to take the lead on this. I’ll be without pay for 15 days, or 3 business weeks. It works out to a salary reduction of just under 6 percent.
I’m hopeful others across the University community will join me. The steps we’ve already taken – the harvesting of unspent and uncommitted fund balances; the pause in hiring, promotions and pay hikes; the overall reductions in administrative spending; and the freezes in executive compensation – have kept us from having to take the steps that many of our peer institutions have been forced into.
We made some tough and unpopular choices, but we’ve been able to avoid the mandatory furloughs that have literally shut down learning for days and weeks at a time at public Universities across the country and right here in the southwest.
Let’s always remember that our greatest priorities are teaching the young people of New Mexico, treating the patients who depend on us and conducting the research that’ll keep our state on the cutting edge.
February 9th, 2009 at 4:31 pm
Hello, Dr. Schmidly. I have a few questions regarding the Voluntary Furlough Program: Will benefits (health, tuition, etc.) be impacted? Will those benefits be available during an employee’s furlough? What is the maximum amount of time an employee may take furlough leave for the fiscal year? Must the furlough leave be taken in one continuous block of time or can it be taken a few days (weeks?) at a time interspersed through-out the year?
February 16th, 2009 at 3:21 pm
Thank you, Norman, for your questions.
While the Voluntary Furlough Program won’t begin until next July and many of the key details are being worked out in the meantime, I don’t believe anyone currently contemplates that we would impact participants’ health and tuition benefits during times of voluntary furlough. After all, these individuals are trying to give something back to the University; we don’t want to force them to make additional sacrifices beyond the very generous one they have already made.
As for the circumstances of your furlough - the amount of time you could take, in what blocks of time, and so on - these are matters that will obviously vary from department to department, and will have to be worked out with your immediate supervisor.
More information will be available shortly. Thank you again for your interest.