Amid budget deficit, state college system offers buyouts for retirement-age faculty
As part of a cost-cutting effort amid a $140 million budget deficit, the Connecticut State Colleges and Universities system has offered to pay employees to retire, marking the first buyout program for state workers in more than a decade.
The buyout offers, which are pending union approval, come shortly after the CSCU Board of Regents approved a 5 percent tuition increase for all campuses, to take effect next fall.
“This initiative is the result of our proactive and strategic approach to addressing our deficits,” CSCU chancellor Terrence Change told the board in December. “It has been carefully designed to complement current mitigation efforts happening across our system.”
CSCU, all the state’s public colleges and universities except the University of Connecticut, spent much of last year seeking ways to cut expenses, after the state budget failed to fully replace federal pandemic-relief funds that had boosted the system amid declining enrollment and rising staff costs.
As students and staff have protested program cuts and tuition hikes, CSCU officials have argued they have little choice given the system’s financial position.
“The system is trying to be creative in taking every step we can to mitigate our budget deficit,” CSCU spokesperson Adam Joseph said Friday. “This is another tool available to us to reduce costs and bring our budget into balance.”
About 550 employees will be eligible for the buyouts, according to a report delivered to the Board of Regents. Employees are eligible if they are 60 or older and have worked for the state at least 10 years.
Savings from the buyouts will depend how many accept and how many of their positions are later re-filled. If half of eligible employees accept and half of their positions are left vacant, the system will save $22.9 million, the report says.
As part of the buyout offer, employees may accept $30,000 or 1 percent of their salary multiplied by their years of government service. Those who wish to accept must do so between Feb. 1 and April 1.
Representatives from the unions representing CSCU employees said Friday they objected to buyouts without a plan to fill the vacated positions. Even before this latest measure, faculty and students on CSCU campuses had complained of inadequate staffing, an issue they now expect to worsen.
“We strongly disagree with the plan to leave positions vacant,” Louise Williams, a history professor and union leader at Central Connecticut State said in a statement. “If the system office does not refill these positions, students, and the quality of education we can provide them, will suffer.”
Dennis Bogusky, a union leader and former student advisor at CT State Community College Norwalk, criticized not only CSCU regents but also lawmakers who have declined to fund the system at a higher level.
“The governor, state lawmakers and the board of regents need to think bigger than this latest manufactured budget shortfall,” he said in a statement. “They need to consider the negative impact on students of professors and instructors leaving classrooms and lecture halls.”