The UNM administration is planning to cut 100 jobs from main campus to decrease the budget deficit the University faces due to decreases in enrollments over the last two years.
President Bob Frank notified the Board of Regents in October that the University will not fill positions that become vacant on main campus to deal with loss in tuition revenue.
Frank also issued a memo to UNM deans, directors and unit administrators, explaining the job cuts as part of a long term strategy to deal with financial loss.
“A hiring review and a review of vacant positions will be initiated. Hiring restrictions and a hiring approval process will be implemented immediately,” Frank said in the memo.
Dorothy Anderson, vice president of human resources at UNM, said administration’s goal is to eliminate 100 vacant staff positions over time.
“We are hopeful that this can be accomplished over the next year but it is really dependent on staff turnover,” she said.
Anderson said the hiring review process applies to all staff positions on main campus.
“Given the varying nature of different positions (administrative/management, specialist and support), the data used in the review process will differ. For instance, a vacant management position may consider the number of employees being supervised and the management structure of the department,” she said.
Employees already working for UNM could undertake the duties of those particular positions when they become vacant. Consolidation of duties is a possibility, Anderson said.
She said the review process is focusing on vacant staff positions in every department on the main campus. He said the primary driver of this process is the continued trend of decreasing revenue.
“Additionally, as in past years, UNM is actively pursuing opportunities for increased efficiency and reallocation of resources to continue investing in our priorities of excellence and student success,” Anderson said.
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She said revenue from tuition, which is part of the University’s overall funding pool, has fallen short of the budgeted amount for the second consecutive year.
“In … 2015, tuition revenue was $2.7M below budget. In FY16, the current fiscal year, our tuition revenue is an additional $3.25M below budget. This decrease in revenue requires us to reduce spending across the University,” She said.
According to Anderson, the amount of money saved by this process will vary depending on the type of vacant positions eliminated; this is the reason why the University does not currently have an estimated amount of savings from the review process.
According to UNM officials, the University enrolled 27,354 students this fall, a 2 percent decrease from fall 2014, when the number of students enrolled was 27,880. The decline resulted in an estimated loss of $1.85 million in tuition revenue and $45,000 in student fees, according to UNM officials.
According to the UNM memo, Frank said most of the University’s expense is tied to personnel, so the strategy to deal with financial loses must include tapering the size of the University’s workforce, both faculty and staff.
“To that end, we will begin a rigorous review to assess the purpose of every position and consider long-term academic trends, support needs and the potential for shared services. We will depend on attrition whenever possible, but we recognize that this is a serious and difficult task,” he was quoted as saying in the memo.
Sayyed Shah is the assistant news editor at the Daily Lobo. He can be contacted at assistant-news@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @mianfawadshah.
