Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, March 19, 1994 TAG: 9403190066
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ALLISON BLAKE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Up to 50 positions in the Cooperative Extension Service may be gone by 1996. The College of Education, under orders to cut $1.6 million, may lose 30 by '97.
More losses could be on the way. So how to part gracefully?
The university may offer a buyout to faculty members.
While plans are still being devised, the Tech provost's office has issued to employees a draft buyout plan. It may have faculty who'll be 55 in two years wondering if they can afford to take a check for one year's pay and head for new pastures.
"I think it will be attractive to some individuals, but it's a case-by-case judgment," said Larry Harris, assistant dean in the College of Education.
The plan would not be an open deal for whoever wants to take part. Only those tenured faculty members whose departments or colleges are being reorganized under plans called Phase II could apply, and they can leave only under mutual agreement with their bosses.
And it's also not yet clear whether or not extension agents will be eligible, said Patricia Hyer, assistant provost. The plan was put together before the General Assembly session ended last week, and changes there may have an impact.
Legislators cut extension's budget by $1.4 million, ensuring job losses. And they apparently changed the law governing a university buyout plan.
Hyer said she's still not sure if the law changed to the benefit of extension workers.
A former law allowed universities to put together buyout plans for tenured faculty with 10 years' experience. Although extension agents are faculty, they cannot get tenure. Hyer said the university is hoping the school will be able to offer the plan to agents with 10 years' experience.
The plan "is very complicated. It's not really in its final form," said David DeWolf, president of the faculty senate. "The idea is to help the Phase II transition, in which program changes might require personnel changes to take place. It will make it possible for faculty to change jobs or retire early."
Tech's Board of Visitors will act on the plan next month. If they approve, the plan must then be approved by the state attorney general.
"The people who are going to be most interested in this are close to retirement," said Hyer.
That's because state law requires that participation in state and university retirement plans ends when an employee leaves. Pension benefits will be limited only to years of service.
Still, the university could see sizeable savings if highly paid professors over 65 go. The federal government lifted mandatory retirement age limits in the 1980s. At Tech, 40 professors are over 65, and eight are over 70.
Specifics of the draft - which still could change - include:
Faculty with at least 10 years' full-time service to Tech must turn in their applications by Jan. 15, 1996, and retire or resign by July 1, 1996.
Those who take the buyout will get no more than 100 percent of their base annual salary at the time the deal is struck. Employee's health-care contributions will be deducted from that sum if they wish to continue the plan.
Those who do take the buyout still can work at Tech part time, but their buyout payments may be made over the course of two or three years. They can't take home more than the total of the higher salary in one year.
As Hyer and others solicit advice about the plans from numerous corners of the university, one memory remains - and is of concern to some faculty.
In 1991, former Gov. Douglas Wilder offered an early retirement plan to state workers. Among the goodies: five years added to a person's years on the job, which increased pension payments considerably.
"That was a very generous buyout," Hyer said. "We just don't have an option to do that. This is a university-funded program."
Former extension director Jim Johnson didn't take Wilder's buyout - he waited a year, and lost financially because of it. Why? Because the agency was in such flux, losing 75 positions and reorganizing, that he said he felt he could not leave.
However, Johnson said there are benefits to buyouts.
"At times, it may be good for organizations to have an opportunity for some people to leave - rejuvenate. You lose a lot of good talent, but then again, it allows you to do things differently."
by CNB