I’m an electrician in the maintenance department at the University. I’ve worked here for almost five years, and I’ve been a proud member of the Texas State Employees Union for most of that time.
Recently, the UH administration announced a one-day, unpaid furlough for faculty and staff making more than $30,000 per year to take place on May 28 or June 1. The measure is part of a 5-percent budget reduction plan called for by Gov. Rick Perry.
UH’s plan also includes cutting overtime pay and eliminating about 83 staff positions through a hiring freeze and layoffs. Other state universities have created similar plans to satisfy the reduction requirements.
Meanwhile, tuition and student fees continue to rise as they have since the Texas Legislature deregulated university tuition in 2003. The combination of pay cuts, layoffs and tuition hikes couldn’t come at a worse time for Texans, as the statewide unemployment rate hovers at 8.3 percent.
Cutting funding to public universities at the expense of students, faculty and staff, however, is not a new trend.
In 1982, 59.7 percent of the University’s total revenue came from the state, while only 12.7 percent was dependent on student tuition and fees. In 2008, only 28 percent of the University’s total budget came from the Legislature, while 31.1 percent came directly from students.
This shows that as public universities receive less public funding, they are forced to put a greater financial burden on students and their families.
The trend has negatively impacted campus workers as well.
In 2003, the same year the state deregulated tuition so that universities could raise rates to whatever level they wanted, legislators also changed the rules and began to exclude university workers from any across-the-board cost-of-living raises that were passed for state agency employees.
Since then, UH employees have seen no meaningful raises, and this was well before the recession hit.
To make matters worse, University employees are facing steep health care cost increases in September due to the underfunding of staff health insurance plans for the 2009 legislative session.
Many will argue that because the country is in a recession, Texas must “tighten its belt” and “cut the fat.” But if there ever was any fat to begin with, it was cut a long time ago as lawmakers slashed university budgets year after year, even when the economy was fine.
Faculty, staff and students at UH and universities across Texas should not be forced to sacrifice again and again in good times and bad.
If Texas wants to continue having a first-class economy with a fully prepared workforce, it must provide affordable, quality higher education for working and middle class families, especially in the bad times when options are limited and family resources are stretched thin.
Ron Gonyea is a UH employee and may be reached at [email protected]
I am disappointed in your decision to change the title of my letter. My title ” ” If the Fat has already been trimmed, all that is left is meat ” reflects what the article was meant to convey where as yours distorts what i said.
I was not faulting the administration, i was faulting the state government for failing to prioritize and fund the state university system. The Governor is calling 5% budget reductions in order to ” trim the Fat ” and the article was to show that the state universities have already been doing that for some time even when the economy was doing great.