Budget Town Hall

10/22/2009: The ODE has a CJ Ciaramella story on the town hall here.

University administrators faced a worried and sometimes angry crowd on Wednesday when they held a town hall-style meeting addressing upcoming furlough days for classified and unclassified staff.

An anonymous observer at the Budget Town hall writes to us:

Lariviere started things off by saying that he was pained by the provision in the SEIU contract forcing employers to make classified staff take furloughs and that he would do everything in his power to “make the classified staff whole again”.

When pressed for a clarification, he said that the furloughs would take place but that the University administration was looking into all possible ways to legally give back the pay lost because of the furloughs.

Jim Bean(UOM: salary $320,700) then explained the budget situation and how the university has taken in $37 million in increased tuition and fees but that has been eaten away nearly entirely by continued state cutbacks, increasing scholarships and other support for needy students, and providing student support services. (UOM: No mention of big ticket items like UO-Bend, diversity, sustainability, golden parachutes, increasing administrative positions, etc?)

Frances Dyke ($212,493) and Melinda Grier($184,710), who shared the dais with Bean and Lariviere, were completely unempathetic towards the classified staff’s situation. Fortunately they only answered a few questions.

One possibility that Lariviere might explore is a UO Foundation fund for the staff. While donations for the benefit of an individual are not tax deductible, presumably donations to a general fund to help out low income staff would be. Perhaps Melinda Grier could redeem herself – a little – by figuring out how to set this up. Nah, she’s beyond redemption. But about 1/2 of President Lariviere’s pay comes from Foundation funds – surely it is possible to set up a similar fund to help out staff too? I know many faculty would contribute. Especially if Lariviere would enact some transparency reforms, so that we would know if Frances blew the surplus on more Johnson Hall remodeling.

Please email additional views on the meeting, or post in comments.