Victoria has $40m hole to fill

Victoria University of Wellington is projecting a $30-$40 million deficit in the wake of the coronavirus, with redundancies, four-day working weeks and furloughs all on the table.

Originally, it had projected a $20m loss due to the loss of international students, but in a document sent to staff, and seen by Stuff, vice-chancellor Grant Guilford said the projected deficit is $30-$40m in 2020, compared to a budgeted $13m surplus.

One option proposed was redundancies, although Guilford said ideally other measures would come first.

He told Stuff that discussions were in the early stages, and the plan was to gauge staff views before a formal proposal was released for consultation.

The process was expected to last several months before a decision was made.

He said staff reassignments; a donation policy allowing staff to donate a portion of their salary to a specific area of the university; a four-day working week or an across-the-board pay cut appeared to be the favoured options at this stage.

At the bottom of the list was redundancies and restricting fixed-term contracts, for example, tutors.

‘‘We want to protect jobs to the degree we can, we feel very strongly about that,’’ Guilford said.

Irena Brorens, acting deputy secretary of the tertiary education union, said the conversation was premature.

‘‘We think the idea of suggesting that there needs to be changes to terms and conditions at this stage is premature.’’

She said the union wanted to sit down with the Government and tertiary education providers and work out a national approach.

‘‘As a union we are completely opposed to any kind of notion of pay reduction or changes to the normal working conditions which are being proposed.’’

VUWSA president Geo Robrigado said the proposals would indirectly affect students.

‘‘If they go to the four-day working week, for example, the professional staff would go to four days, but the students will still have five days of classes.’’

He said this meant one day a week when students would not be able to access professional staff.

‘‘A lot of the systems would start to be inefficient, and that would mean for students they won’t be getting a lot of the information that is crucial to their studies.’’

Another area of concern was to restrict fixed-term appointments, such as tutoring staff, which are often filled by students.

‘‘These post-graduate students are entering tutoring work, not just as a source of income, but also as a way for them to hone their academia skills.’’

He said restricting fixed-term appointments would remove the opportunity for students to gain those skills prior to finishing their degree.

‘‘We want to protect jobs to the degree we can, we feel very strongly about that.’’

Grant Guilford Victoria University vice-chancellor