The article contains some System driven misinformation. Many campuses, including UMaine, have met the curtailment. No layoffs due to the curtailment, or the extra million plus charged the campus by the System, occurred at UMaine and none are planned.

Some campuses did resort to layoffs to balance their budgets earlier in the year. Apparently these people were not important to the System. I wonder why?

How can layoffs be a "worst case scenario" yet not have been discussed while using layoffs as a threat in negotiating?

WOW! Two days off per person by June 30 will save $1.8 million...Overstaffed, overpaid, both???

They're going after the wrong people here. I know professors who only teach 1 or 2 classes in a semester. That boils down to about 90 minutes of actual productivity in a week. The rest of the time is meetings, reading (or "research"), building igloos and hanging out at home.

ban tenure for these professors....not a real world situation.....

If they closed all those far flung campuses and tele-learning centers it would balance the budget that same day. Stick with two or three core campuses and forget all these money losing and student lacking units. The students would get a better education and the state would get a much better university system. Over the years, small campuses have popped up all over the state. I suspect this is a quid pro quo; you vote for mine and I'll vote for yours. Most of these so called campuses do not come to the educational level of our community colleges. But it would be irrational to think that the university system would ever shrink itself; it is in the business of creating a dynasty - the only problem being the dynasty bill is due last week and the coffers are empty.

augustagoverned, do you realize how long it takes to get back and forth from Fort Kent to Orono by snowmobile? They'd never get the potatoes harvested.

I agree. The tiny campuses in Fort Kent & Machias don't make sense. I think the university should consolidate its resources in Orono.

Yes, Bangorian, but have you ever proposed this idea to someone from Fort Kent (or likely also Machias)? They'll fight you to the bloody death!

Excuse me Maineah1. I have worked at the university for 21 years and we are FAR from being overpaid and we are DEFINITELY understaffed. I do the job of three people for the same pay which is not what others think university employees get paid. I have been laid off twice previously and worked a job here on campus during the summer as a temp with no insurance and no benefits whatsoever. In order to maintain my insurance I had to pay full cost for it out of my own pocket for my husband and myself. This was after being employed here for 15 years at the time. Offices used to be staffed with 2-3 people handling the student population as well as working for faculty members. Now most offices are staffed with one person such as myself to do it all and some departments have hundreds of students to assist every week. I also know professors who only teach a minimal of classes. I do think that changes could be made there that would make a difference, but as far as us peons go we are all grateful for the jobs that we have even though it means that we do have more tasks at hand. The janitorial staff is down so badly that most custodians have three buildings to do in their 8 hour shifts every shift and the maintenance crew has been cut drastically also. The university needs to start looking at their Systems office in Bangor and have their employees be the first to take furlough days as most of them make $60,000 plus a year. The peons on campus, like myself, make nowhere near that amount and never will and most of us live paycheck to paycheck. Not because of bad spending choices.......it's just the way it is. So please maineah1, walk in these shoes before you decide that two days doesn't amount to much. If it's only $50 each time it's still too much for most of us as we still have to pay insurances and taxes. And sometimes that $50 is what buys the gas and groceries for that week.

My father was the 1st male in our farming family to graduate high school, and unon his return to The County from WWII service in the South Pacific, earned his business degree from Ricker College in Houlton, because he could do the morning & evening milkings and still make classes. Fast forward 12-15 years to a time when family farms were really starting to decline (not due to the "invisable hand" of market forces as much as to conscious federal policy), and a small Maine farm really could not support several generations/households, and a two-month stint as a substitute math teacher turned into his career. With none of the outreach capacity we now have in our public postsecondary education systems, it took him 8 years to earn his masters in education, combining Summer short courses with driving one night a week from Bridgewater to Orono & back...through the Haynesville Woods.

Access to postsecondary education is one of the most crucial factors in long-term economic development, and with no private institutions in the northern half of Maine (north of Bangor, including DownEast/Washington County) it is only the state that can make such investments through our community college and university systems. Education & training is no longer something you do once...it is increasingly important to return periodically to learn new skills. As a manager of a private business-oriented university center in southern Maine, the average age of our students is in the mid-30s (our top-ranked graduate last year was in her 60s and retraining for another decade of work). Maine already has an economy that is skewed - thus, the "Two Maines" dynamic - and with precious little state investment in the rural "rim counties," it is critical that institutions of higher ed in those areas be maintained and expanded. For traditionally aged (18-22) college students, most of whom will live in a dorm and have the "residential experience," they can as easily spend 4 years in Machias, Fort Kent or Farmington as in Portland, But for those who have families, businesses and are otherwise juggling multiple responsibilities while gaining the skills and credentials that allow them to pull themselves up by thier bootstraps, these rural institutions are critical and strategic investments.

Whoops! I had forgotten that since I left Washington County, Husson now has centers in Calais and Eastport...

I've been employed at Arizona State University for almost 3 decades. We just instituted furloughs for the first time. The difference here is that ALL university employees are required to participate including, faculty, administration, coaches, and the university president. Consider yourself fortunate to take only 2 days off. We have to take anywhere from 10-15 days before June 30th. The key is the way the furlough plan has been structured in a way that you have several options on how you want your deduction made. The most popular is your pay is reduced the percentage equal to the number of days off you are required to pay spread out for the remainder of the year. That way you don't take big hits when you take your days off and you still pick up 2-3 weeks of paid vacation in the next 5 months. Beats laying off thousands.

Maineah1, if you would stop to think a little before you made comments like you did, you wouldn't look so non-educated. The UMaine system employs people in over seven campuses, not to mention a Cooperative Extension Office in all the counties in Maine. That is why if all their employees took take two days off it would add up to $1.8 million. If there were just 10,000 employees in the system (probably there are more than that) than that would total to $90 dollars a day on average, for all job titles. I am sorry but that is not overpaid. I know for a fact that most of their employees are overworked and underpaid. My wife only gets paid for 40 hours a week (no OT is allowed) and she works on average 5 hours a week on her own time.

Also if we resort to shutting down campuses where will the children of Maine go to school? Isn’t the goal to keep them in Maine, since they are our future? Think before you speak…

i was employed by the University as an hourly administrative assistant for a little over 5 years. That system is a political mess. The discrimation is prevelent. The hourly folks are unpaid and there are a few senior admins in every office that suck up to the boss and stab colleagues in the back to guarentee job security. The system folks in the Bangor office make the big bucks. The professors bilk the system and think if they teach a class or two, they have earned their bucks. They don't work that hard because they have lots of time to play dirty politics with the underlings, run personal arrends and I won't even get into the trips they take. For an instutite of higher education the folks in charge are the most ignorant bunch i ever worked for. I say lay the admins off and let the professors answer the phones and take care of their department business. Let the professors earn their money......

Luckyone that is a nice idea to make them work, but it would really be punishing the overworked and underpaid because they would not have jobs. How would that help the economy with everyone drawing unemployment and no money to buy items?

Which ever way you look at it, education is important. There is no doubt that all the campuses are being used too their fullest. If we were to stand back and take a good hard look, I am sure that money could still be saved by downsizing our state government. You know the guy who's holding up the world on his shoulders?, actually, that Maines taxpayers supporting state leadership.

They should be looking at the highest paid employees to take upaid time, not the lowest paid. Much of the university staff is hourly and can barely make ends meet as it is. Some work more than one job as it is to pay the bills!

There is definately a disparity between the Elite Eggheads that head departments and the "working class" at U of M. I recently looked at the wage paid fro management or mechanics at their motor pool. They are seriously behind not only the industry standard, but the local demographic as well. On occasion, I have noticed jobs advertized for the U system and have sratched my head as to the wage offered. As an HR proffesional, I don't understand the logic. This also applies to the State DOT. Mechanics with inspection license and CDL class A start at $12.50 an hour? Uof ME advertsing for a licensed master plummer for $12 something an hour? It is obvious there is no appreciation for a "learned" person, just an educated person. In my experience, I have never met a well learned idiot, just an educated one. I am thankful to have a degree and beleive it has only helped me in life, however I am not too quick to discount those who have benefited from the school of hard knocks. Lord knows I have.

well, I personally know a mechanic at the motor pool that has worked there since graduating high school, some 40 years ago. The motor pool supervisor position became available last year. After spending many hours compliling all the duties that he performed for the Motor Pool over the years he applied for the position. He has even worked in the supervisorary position without the pay. Now the U has still not hired aanyone to fill the supervisor position. This person is working in the supervisor position but being paid as a regular worker.

Actually,Noneyabusiness, the underlings are just collatoral damage from the new computer Program, People Soft . The U just calls it something else. More crazy making...

"There is definately a disparity between the Elite Eggheads that head departments and the "working class" at U of M."

Of course there is. The value of a university is the professors and the research they do. I agree the blue collar workers are important, but that's not why people go to university.

As for wages paid, as long as they are able to fill the positions and get the job done, they are paying enough. If people don't like it thay can work elsewhere.

If furloughs are the solution, let's extend them to ALL STATE AND LOCAL EMPLOYEES! Police, fire, all teachers at all levls, everyone in my town office, DHHS, DEP, all Augustacrats, everyone that derives at least one penny from the taxpayers should work without pay for at least 1 day a month. It is disgusting that the state is the only source of employment growth, stop it!