Budget cuts at MU mean delayed trash pickup

The MU Operations department announced earlier on Tuesday that it would be eliminating more than 50 jobs from their fiscal budget for 2017.

The University told ABC 17 that due to the lower amount in enrollment, budget cuts needed to be made and they felt that by eliminating certain jobs, that would help keep that budget lower.

Jobs that are impacted include, but not limited to, custodial staff, mail service only once a week, and lower amount of maintenance crews.

The custodial staff on the weekend crews to clean up after weekend home football games wouldn’t be working until Monday during their regular shift starts.

University of Missouri’s Spokesperson Christian Basi told ABC 17 that the crews that currently work the Sunday clean up shifts are coming in on overtime to assist and they no longer wanted workers to work on overtime.

Senator Kurt Schaefer told ABC that he doesn’t agree with the job cuts and feels that they could have found other ways to cut the budget. “If the fact that they need to make the cuts is a decision that was made from administration, then that responsibility should fall on the administration and they should be absorbing the impact of the cuts.

Residents that live near campus say they aren’t happy with the new change, feeling that even with the current system in place, it is still a failed system. Maria Goslin told ABC 17 that “Well I am ill, and I can hardly pick up my own trash, not much less picking up someone else’s.”

Senator Schaefer reiterated that, “it’s unfortunate whenever you, the person or people, had nothing to do with the decisions that were made caused the unfortunate outcome in the declined enrollment, are the ones that bare the impact.”