Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, July 12, 1995 TAG: 9507130019
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-4 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium
About 160 full-time VCU and Medical College of Virginia faculty have applied to voluntarily leave the university by next summer in exchange for up to nine months' salary or reduced early retirement benefits.
The departures could save VCU as much as $13.4 million annually, said Grace Harris, VCU's provost. The savings would go toward VCU's state-mandated restructuring plan, which calls for the school to upgrade computer equipment and student services.
VCU's recommendations under the Workforce Transition Act must be approved by state officials, including the secretary of education.
The university's academic, personnel and budgetary officers are conducting case-by-case reviews of the applications, most of which are early retirement requests from some of the senior faculty and administrators.
Some faculty may have to be replaced, especially since some professors seeking to leave want to do so before or during the upcoming fall semester. But Harris said steps are being taken to make sure that students are not left in the lurch.
``We've asked the deans to be very careful in their recommendations to make certain they can cover their faculty needs,'' she said.
Already, VCU is preparing for the departure of nearly 400 nonfaculty employees, who were among 667 VCU workers volunteering to trade their jobs for cash under the buyout law.
Across Virginia, about 5,500 state workers, or 4.8 percent of the 113,000-member state force, chose this spring to voluntarily leave their jobs. Hundreds of additional state workers are appealing the rejection of their departure requests.
Virginia colleges were required to participate in the job-cutting program. But the law left it up to them whether to extend the program to faculty. So far, only VCU is doing so - and it's taking a gamble in the process.
Under the law, agencies' savings from buyouts and early retirements revert to the state. While the colleges were granted an exemption to that rule this spring, it will be up to the Allen administration to decide whether to again grant such an exception, with VCU serving as the test case.
VCU officials say they expect the administration to allow the university to retain all salary savings resulting from the buyout plan, as well as the option of refilling positions. ``We have every belief that we'll get our dollars back and that the dollars can be used for restructuring,'' Harris said.
But there is no guarantee, a fact that has prompted some Virginia colleges to defer consideration of the state's faculty reduction idea.
by CNB