FROSTBURG, Md. – Frostburg State University has turned a $7.7 million budget deficit to a $3.48 million surplus, thanks to cost-cutting measures taken, including faculty layoffs, university officials said. The deficit was caused mostly by a decrease in enrollment, state funding cuts and unfunded mandates.
In December, university officials said some 45 faculty positions would be eliminated. However, due to cost savings from retirements, phased retirements, divisional mergers and the layoff of 11 adjunct professors who were teaching only one course, the process ultimately resulted in FSU notifying four faculty full-time non-tenure-track faculty members, that their contracts would not be renewed. Additionally, three tenure-track faculty members and one tenured faculty member were notified that their faculty appointment ended. Each of these eight faculty members, depending on their length of service to FSU, received six-months to one year notification that their employment would end.
Over the summer, a team consisting of members of FSU’s faculty, staff and students worked to assist leadership in identifying options to address the budget challenges that would have the least negative impact on students. The University System of Maryland, of which Frostburg is part, also pledged financial support and flexibility to help FSU through these budget challenges if it was able to implement a plan to resolve the long-term deficit.
The resulting multi-year plan, coined the Educational Market Alignment Plan, included an administrative reorganization to merge divisions and eliminate two vice president positions, reorganize deans’ offices and reduce the number of department chairs and coordinators responsible for like disciplines; reductions to the athletics budget and scholarship reallocations; University and unit operational reductions; and a reduction in faculty staffing to address an imbalance in the number of students, due to enrollment declines, compared to the reduction of faculty that had occurred through attrition. This rebalancing was meant to raise the student to faculty ratio, which had fallen to less than 13 to 1, to 16 to 1, closer to the historic benchmark of 18 to 1.
“The EMAP (plan) that emerged from a lengthy process that included the opportunity for input from the campus community and alumni is a balanced approach that impacts every part of campus,” said Al Delia, now serving as the FSU interim president.
The termination of faculty appointments, termed retrenchment, proved the most difficult, Delia said. The layoff process is a highly prescribed process outlined by USM Board of Regents policy and in the FSU Faculty Handbook. It is a process led by faculty members, both elected and appointed.
FSU’s president at the time, the late Ron Nowaczyk, charged the committee with developing and providing an ordered list of academic departments to be recommended for staff cuts, which resulted in a list of 45 faculty.
“The Committee worked very seriously and diligently, put in many hours of time and provided a thoughtful, comprehensive set of recommendations based on the best available data and a very well-considered methodology,” said Nowaczyk at the time. “I am grateful for their steadfast commitment to Frostburg State University.”
Originally scheduled for mid-January, the outcome of the staff cutback process was accelerated and announced to campus at the end of December, before the University’s holiday break, at the request of FSU’s Faculty Senate.
Each of the full-time non-tenure track, the tenure track. and tenured faculty will receive, at no cost to them, career services, coaching and placement help from a national company engaged by the University. All these adjustments as part of the EMAP will result in an approximate $4.875 million savings for the University and result in a student to faculty ratio of 16.5 to 1.
The successful implementation of Frostburg’s plan so far has taken FSU from a budget deficit of $7.7 million to a $3.48 million surplus in the current fiscal year because of the difficult decisions that the University has had to make. FSU is also in a much better position now to withstand the additional cuts in the governor’s budget to the University System of Maryland’s state appropriation.
“FSU will tighten our belts as much as possible, without impacting the quality of the education we provide to students, to meet the budget requirements asked of us,” said Delia. “We will, once again, be looking carefully at ways we can decrease costs and increase revenues in the coming year.”
The implementation of the various components of the cost-cutting plan will be carried out over several years.
