https://kutv.com/news/local/u-of-u-furlo...d-included

SALT LAKE CITY (KUTV) — The University of Utah will furlough every employee in its athletic department, including Athletic Director Mark Harlan and team coaches because of financial shortfalls in a global pandemic.
...
Harlan's statement is as follows:

"As I have previously shared, the financial challenges that we are facing at Utah has led us to make difficult—but necessary—decisions to mitigate the financial impacts of the pandemic. These changes include furloughs of various lengths for every Department employee—including me, our executive cabinet and our head and assistant coaches. In addition, in some select cases, we have also eliminated positions through reductions in force. We also have eliminated all performance bonuses until further notice.

“These decisions were not based on employee performance, but rather reflect the significant financial shortfall we face as well as the realities of the postponement of fall sports competition. We are prioritizing the areas of our athletics operations that directly support our student-athletes."

(09-05-2020 09:37 AM)f1do Wrote:  https://kutv.com/news/local/u-of-u-furlo...d-included

SALT LAKE CITY (KUTV) — The University of Utah will furlough every employee in its athletic department, including Athletic Director Mark Harlan and team coaches because of financial shortfalls in a global pandemic.

Unfortunately, the article doesn't give the details of the furlough, and furloughs can vary considerably. E.g., about nine years ago my school had a very tough financial year, and I and all other faculty were hit with a 10% furlough. We continued to work, but our pay for the year was cut 10%.

That sucked of course, and I've never really gotten over what I perceived as the injustice of that, but that's a big difference from say being sent home without pay for a whole six months or something, which also is a furlough. So I'd like to know what the terms of the furlough are.

So if the president can be furloughed while school is in session, maybe you don't need a president.

(09-05-2020 09:56 AM)bullet Wrote:  So if the president can be furloughed while school is in session, maybe you don't need a president.

The concept of a "furlough" for a salaried employee is a legal fiction. "Furlough" means that you don't work and you don't get paid for a given period of time. With hourly employees, that's easy to do - e.g., you tell an hourly worker that he is being furloughed one hour a day for the next month, and then instead of clocking in at 9 and out at 5 each day, he clocks out at 4 each day for that month and gets paid for 7 hours not 8.

But salaried employees, such as admins and faculty, can't have their "hours cut" like that because they don't work hours. They are basically "on call" all the time. E.g., when I (faculty) was hit with a 10% furlough 9 years ago, even though I was losing a month's salary, I wasn't able to just go on vacation for a month. I was expected to still meet all my classes, hold office hours, attend university meetings, and meet research goals - my whole job basically, but just get paid 10% less for it.

That's what is likely to happen here - the admins and coaches, etc. will all keep working, the furlough is basically a pay cut. But that distinction matters - a pernicious aspect of the difference between pay cut and furlough is the impact on retirement. If you are in a pension plan, from their POV the furlough means you didn't work during that time, even if you really did, so you don't accumulate service credit towards retirement. I had to pay over $4,000 to "buy back" that service credit even though I in-fact worked the whole damn time just like I always did. If they had called it a pay cut, then that wouldn't have been necessary. So that furlough hit my pocket twice. Still pisses me off thinking about it, LOL.

A previous article indicated that before the PAC12 cancelled fall games, Utah was anticipating a shortfall and the "top earners" including AD Harlan, and HCs Krystkowiak and Whittingham had returned some money from their salaries to the tune of $8 mill total. At the time they assumed they would still have 6 home games with some measure of fans in the stadium.

Since then, they are now in today's article projecting a $50-$60 million shortfall. Anecdotally a reader posted in the comments that he called his ticket rep to check on things and his voice mail said he was gone effective Aug 12.

It sounds like they are really hoping the daily testing plan will be enough to get the coastal states to okay winter or spring football to try and mitigate this huge financial gap.

(09-05-2020 10:05 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(09-05-2020 09:56 AM)bullet Wrote:  So if the president can be furloughed while school is in session, maybe you don't need a president.

That's what is likely to happen here - the admins and coaches, etc. will all keep working, the furlough is basically a pay cut.

I agree but I also appreciate that the AD is not exempting himself or anyone else in the department from budget cuts. It would seem this is still the exception and not the rule for universities across the nation.

(09-05-2020 03:22 PM)UCGrad1992 Wrote:  

(09-05-2020 10:05 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(09-05-2020 09:56 AM)bullet Wrote:  So if the president can be furloughed while school is in session, maybe you don't need a president.

That's what is likely to happen here - the admins and coaches, etc. will all keep working, the furlough is basically a pay cut.

I agree but I also appreciate that the AD is not exempting himself or anyone else in the department from budget cuts. It would seem this is still the exception and not the rule for universities across the nation.

No question, that is one broad, sweeping furlough.

Who cares... BYU is playing today...