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48 Faculty Members at University of Akron Accept Early Retirement Offer

48 Faculty Members at University of Akron Accept Early Retirement Offer

“represents 20 percent of the 240 who were eligible”

The school did this to drive down a $20 million dollar deficit. That’s not chump change.

Cleveland.com reports:

48 University of Akron faculty, administrators opt to take voluntary retirement incentives

Forty-eight full-time University of Akron faculty and administrators have decided to accept a voluntary retirement incentive program.

That represents 20 percent of the 240 who were eligible. They will leave by May 31.

The university has said the measure was needed to help whittle down an expected budget deficit of $20 million by the end of the fiscal year. The deficit was caused by a decline in enrollment, high debt and other factors.

The voluntary retirement program was announced last December by Vice President of Finance Nathan Mortimer. The university expects to save $3.7 in 2019 as a result of the 48 departures.

Full-time AAUP faculty, school of law faculty and administrators with faculty rank were eligible. Their age and years of continuous UA service had to add up to a minimum of 75 as of May 31.

“As you know, we have been working on a plan called Stabilize-Invest-Grow that will help us tackle UA’s financial challenges in light of enrollment declines over the past seven years,” Mortimer wrote to those who were eligible. The incentive program “will reduce personnel expenses and help us align our resources to best serve our students, now and in the future.”

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Comments

I would be curious to know how much the “voluntary retirement incentives” cost the school. A typical golden parachute would cost the equivalent of 2-5 years of salary, which would increase, not decrease, the budget deficit for this year. I suspect some creative accounting is going on, where the incentives are charged to some other budget so they aren’t reflected in this year’s deficit.

Campus environment has become charged and “toxic”. Who wants to be in the midst of that?