JURIS GRANEY Halt the ‘reckless’ budget cuts, support staff group urges U of A

Pressure is mounting against University of Alberta administration to put a stop to four per cent budget cuts at the province’s largest university in the next academic year.

The Non-Academic Staff Association, which represents more than 6,000 non-academic support staff at the university, called on administration Tuesday to reconsider the across-the-board cuts first announced in October last year and approved by the board of governors last week.

Those cuts come at the same time the university hiked international student tuition, increased rent at student residences and instituted a new, more costly, meal plan.

Association president Elizabeth Johannson said layoffs of support staff have already begun and while she could not give specifics, said the losses were in the “double digits,” with more to come.

In the past few months, Johannson said non-academic staff positions have been eliminated and people on contract have been told their positions would not be renewed.

Those cuts have affected areas that “provide essential services to students, such as in the Registrar’s Office,” she said.

“We see this as reckless to the ongoing needs and goals of the institution,” she said.

The cuts were based on a projection that there would be a zero per cent increase in the Campus Alberta Grant and no backfill for a domestic tuition freeze, she said.

Advanced Education Minister Marlin Schmidt, however, announced in late November that universities would share in $17 million in backfill funding and the province announced a two per cent increase of the base operating grant last week in its budget.

Johannson called on the university to put a halt to the layoffs until it has time to make an assessment on the adjusted income to its budget.

On Monday, the Association of Academic Staff University of Alberta slammed the cuts, calling them unjustified.