Lincoln University says 48 positions will be cut for fiscal year 2018 budget
Lincoln University announced Monday it will eliminate nearly 50 positions in the coming school year due to a $3.8 million budget shortfall.
ABC 17 News reported earlier this month that the university’s interim provost sent a letter to faculty saying leaders expected to cut 23 faculty positions.
On Monday, the university confirmed it will cut more than double that amount. About 80 percent of the cuts, however, will be staff positions, and only 15.5 faculty jobs will be eliminated.
The large deficit is due to a big cut to higher education across Missouri in the proposed FY2018 state budget as well as a reduction in the amount of land grant funding the university will receive.
About half of the 15.5 faculty positions were already cut earlier this school year with layoffs in the music and history departments, according to Stephanie Clark, the incoming chair of the university’s faculty senate.
A few of the other cuts will come from retirement and attrition. But that still leaves about 3-5 new faculty layoffs.
Right now, it is unclear exactly who will be eliminated from the faculty and staff.
“Faculty work more hours in a week than they probably should,” Clark said, “and so this is going to increase workload as well. And losing quality, dedicated faculty always hurts.”
In addition to the layoffs, the university said it is going to cut pay across the board by 0.5 percent and use about $500,000 from the fund balance.
The university also plans to reduce spending in the following ways:
getting rid of a network administration and programming contract not renewing a contract for recruitment software delaying future property purchases restructuring academic advising reducing academic spending decreasing the number of department heads from six to three in the College of Arts and Sciences — a change that already happened in the current year by combining two departments combining the registrar and recruitment and new student engagement offices
You can read the university’s full statement below:
