UMaine unions question budget shortfall, looming layoffs in emergency town hall
Two students chat on the campus of the University of Maine in Orono in September. (Daryn Slover/Staff Photographer)
University of Maine faculty and staff attending a town hall Monday night argued that the impacts of the university’s $19 million budget shortfall should not fall on employees or students.
The emergency event on the campus in Orono, attended by more than 100 people, was hosted by a coalition of the university’s faculty, staff and graduate worker unions, as well as some student organizations, known together as UMaine United. Speakers, including state lawmakers, professors, staff members and students, said the university cannot afford to lose more of its workforce, and that cuts would weaken the quality of the institution.
“We cannot cut our way to excellence,” said Sara Abronze, president of the systemwide professional staff union.
Speakers also asked the administration for greater transparency in the budget decision-making process.
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The university announced last month that it would need to pursue staff and faculty layoffs, among other strategies, in response to an expected $19 million budget deficit.
The initial letter addressed plans to reduce the gap by about $10 million through reductions in academic affairs, including by eliminating a fifth of vacant positions. Then an announcement last week laid out a plan to reduce the shortfall by another $6 million through nonacademic cuts, including workforce reductions, relying less on external vendors and other means to bring the deficit to $3 million.
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The school has not yet released details on who will be laid off, although the latest plan called for the elimination of vacant positions from athletics, student life and the president’s office.
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Enrollment rates at the flagship university, which include its regional campus in Machias, have declined by 7% over the past five years, even as student numbers across the entire system have gone up.
The proposal to close the budget gap includes a goal of increasing enrollment by 1% across several categories, including first-years, transfers, graduate students and adult degree completers, and improving undergraduate retention by 1%.
Speakers at Monday’s town hall said it will be harder to attract more students if the university cuts faculty and programs.
They also criticized the Maine Legislature, saying it has underfunded public higher education in the state, and called on the incoming incoming governor and legislators to support increased state appropriations that keep up with inflation.
Rep. Amy Roeder, a Democratic lawmaker from Bangor and a part-time lecturer at the university, said students and the institution will suffer from the loss of staff and faculty. Roeder said that during her time as the House chair of the labor committee, she heard lots of arguments from employers.
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“The workers always seem to get the lecture about being realistic. Well, let’s be realistic,” Roeder said. “You cannot reduce the people available to students and promise the students the same education.”
Faculty Senate President Brian McGill said the latest proposed cuts come on the heels of a 7% reduction across the board and a 17% reduction in faculty following postpandemic retirement incentives.
“What are the students going to have left when that’s done?” McGill said.
The Faculty Senate passed an emergency resolution in September asking the administration for clarity on the origins of the budget crisis and how the university would make decisions about cuts. It also requested a role in reviewing proposals and offering recommendations.
McGill said Monday that the administration’s response was unsatisfying and it questioned why faculty wanted the information it sought.
“How about because we’re on the chopping block?” he said. “How about because some of us have worked here for decades and we care about this place and we have a stake in what it looks like in three years, in five years, and we care about the students that are here?”
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Graduate worker Andrii Obertas, a master’s student in the mathematics and statistics department, said the quality of the university has already been undermined by the faculty and staff anxieties. He criticized the University of Maine System’s polarizing recent $1.4 million contract with OpenAI to get ChatGPT Edu for every student and employee across the system.
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“Firing teachers and buying AI for our students: This is truly the message that Maine’s flagship university wants to stand behind,” Obertas said, to boos from the crowd.
The unions are circulating a petition against layoffs, which organizers said had more than 350 signatures as of Monday.
The university will present its full budget proposal to the system’s board of trustees in January.
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Tagged: unions, university of maine, University of Maine System
Riley covers education for the Press Herald. Before moving to Portland, she spent two years in Kenai, Alaska, reporting on local government, schools and natural resources for the public radio station KDLL. More by Riley Board
