BOSTON – University of Massachusetts President Jack M. Wilson today announced he was freezing the salaries of university employees who earn at least $120,000 annually, excluding faculty members and unionized workers.
It was not immediately clear how many people will be affected, but the freeze begins immediately and will run through fiscal 2010, which begins July 1, according to UMass.
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“The five campus chancellors and I are taking this step, recognizing that people at our university and throughout society are being asked to make sacrifices at this time,” said Wilson, who made the announcement at a meeting of the UMass Board of Trustees’ Committee on Administration and Finance.
An informal wage-freeze already has been in effect throughout this fiscal year, according to the state university system.
Today’s announcement follows a recent two-week furlough for highly paid UMass-system employees, as well as layoffs and other budget actions. And Boston newspapers today reported that the UMass trustees are backing a $1,500 increase in student fees, which would bring tuition for in-state undergraduates to an average of $11,000. The full board of trustees is to vote on the measure next Friday.
The university is struggling to close a $100 million deficit it says is partly due to reduced state subsidies.
“Regretfully, it may be necessary for further furloughs, layoffs and budget actions as we move through the year,” Wilson said in a statement. “We are living at a time when few people are seeing their financial circumstances improve and most are happy to preserve what they have as we ride out the current fiscal and economic storm. These steps are designed to preserve quality and to maintain stability.
“We are working very hard to make sure that UMass remains the high-quality, affordable option for the sons and daughters of the Commonwealth.”
Wilson continued: “We value the contributions of all of the university’s employees – administrators, faculty and staff – who work hard every day to make the University of Massachusetts one of our nation’s great public research universities, and thank them for their service, for the sacrifices they have already made and for the ideas they have put forward to help us move forward during these challenging days.”
The University of Massachusetts, founded in Amherst in 1863, also has campuses in Boston, Dartmouth and Lowell plus the UMass Medical School in Worcester. For additional information about the five-campus state university system, go to www.massachusetts.edu.
