Back when he was hired as FAMU’s tenth president in 2007, James Ammons stated that his top budget priority was saving faculty and staff jobs. But now that FAMU’s federal stimulus dollars are running dry, the university is out of options for avoiding severe personnel layoffs.FAMU started losing big amounts of money in 2005 when the then-interim president eliminated the university's recruitment program and caused an enrollment decline. State-mandated budget cuts have sliced FAMU’s budget by more than $30M since Ammons took office in 2007. The Ammons administration dealt with the budget squeeze by paring back on adjunct positions, travel, and new hiring.
Federal stimulus rescues FAMU jobs
U.S. President Barack Obama’s Recovery and Reinvestment Act played a huge role in helping FAMU hang on to many personnel positions. FAMU received $7.4M education stimulus dollars for 2009-2010 and $8.4M for 2010-2011.
According to Ammons, the federal stimulus permitted FAMU to “save 347 full- and part-time jobs, including adjunct faculty and overloads for our regular full-time faculty.” 78 percent of FAMU’s budget goes to personnel salaries.
The pending loss of stimulus dollars means that FAMU must now join the other State University System of Florida (SUS) institutions that are cutting dozens of permanent employees.
FAMU's painful cuts
In June Rattler Nation was the first to report that salaries of 26 personnel positions in FAMU’s School of General Studies and the John A. Mulrennan, Sr. Public Health Entomology Research & Education Center had been moved to stimulus dollars set to expire at the end of this fiscal year.
The FAMUan recently added that the entire Schools of General Studies and Graduate Studies are now slated for closure on June 30, 2011. The whole Mulrennan lab will also dissolve on that date.
Cuts around the SUS
The University of Central Florida, Florida’s largest university (and the second largest in the nation), plans to eliminate Cardiopulmonary Sciences and Radiologic Sciences (College of Health and Public Affairs), Engineering Technology (College of Engineering & Computer Science) and Management Information Systems (College of Business Administration.) Actuarial Sciences in UCF’s College of Sciences will be suspended.
UCF expects the cuts to affect at least 32 faculty members and eight staff members. The university has already reduced operating costs by declining to fill 200 vacant jobs.
The University of Florida released a budget plan in 2009 that anticipates layoffs totaling nine faculty and 49 staff members. It plans to eliminate approximately 150 faculty and staff positions through a combination of unfilled vacancies, retirements and non-renewals. UF is already using $6.4M in federal stimulus dollars for final payouts to laid-off employees and another $7.6M for early retirement incentives.
Florida State announced the layoffs of 21 tenured faculty members earlier this year but recently reinstated the positions after an arbiter ruled that the university used a flawed process to dismiss the employees.
FAMU might have to cut another $5M from its budget this year. Florida’s public universities also received notice that they might take another 15 percent across-the-board cut in 2011-2012. That would be $14.2M at FAMU. The university is still going forward with a $1,000 increase in base pay for its personnel.