Instead of getting rid of dead weight, UW-Madison looks for the Union label.
Via Watchdog
Here’s the University of Wisconsin-Madison Idea on how to deal with the massive layoffs administrators are threatening should Gov. Scott Walker’s two-year budget proposal come to pass: Last ones hired, first ones fired.
UW Chancellor Rebecca Blank laid out the doomsday scenarios late Wednesday night for a packed audience of mostly third-shift university employees gathered for the first of Blank’s budget forums scheduled this week.[…]
UW-Madison Vice Chancellor for Finance and Administration Darrell Bazzell said layoffs would most likely be based on seniority — not solely on work performance.
Blank ran the numbers, very much subject to change in a fluid legislative biennial budget process. She noted that $60 million is proposed to be directly taken from UW-Madison’s budget. The chancellor added another $5-10 million in cuts proposed in other parts of the budget with some reductions still not “absorbed” from the last biennium, for a total estimated budget hit of more than $90 million.[…]
Administrators, however, haven’t touched much on the hundreds of millions of dollars in cash on hand the UW System controls, portions of which could go to defray some of the impact.
While the chancellor claims Walker’s proposed budget cuts will be devastating and force the displacement of untold numbers of employees, she said there is enough money to raise all employees to a “living wage” level.
“We have put money aside to raise those employees (below living wage) to the living wage level when we get that authority effective July 1,” she said. “We are planning to do that despite this budget crisis because it is just too important to make sure that all of our employees are at least at living wage.”
Blank apologized to the university employees several times for Walker’s budget plan, which also gives the University System more autonomy and less legislative control — something for which administrators have asked.
The chancellor did not mention whether the looming budget cuts would impact her annual base salary of $495,000. Presumably Blank, a former Obama administration official hired in spring 2013, would not fall under the “seniority” rule.