Yale University announced on Wednesday that it planned a number of steps to close a remaining $150 million budget gap, including cutting staff, freezing salaries for deans and officers, reducing the number of graduate students — even turning down all thermostats to 68 degrees.
In a memo to the faculty and staff,Richard C. Levin, Yale’s president, and Peter Salovey, its provost, said the measures were necessary because of the drop in the endowment to $16.3 billion last June from its peak of $22.9 billion in June 2008.“Actions taken last year eliminated more than half of the total deficit, but, as we communicated in the fall, a substantial gap of nearly $150 million remained as of last September,” they wrote. “This gap needs to be closed for the next and subsequent years.”
The memo did not specify how many staff positions would be eliminated. Last year, 100 employees, out of a work force of 9,200, were laid off because of similar financial pressures, and several hundred more positions were eliminated through attrition, said Tom Conroy, a Yale spokesman. Those cuts did not affect faculty positions; nor will the current round.
Laura Smith, president of Local 34 of the Federation of University Employees, which represents 3,400 clerical and technical workers at Yale, said the union would try to blunt the impact of any cuts on its members. “It’s disappointing over all that the university feels it has to do more cuts,” she said, noting that the union and Yale had reached agreement last April on a new contract with strong job security, eight months ahead of schedule.