University of Illinois Exploring Furlough Days Option

Budget fears have prompted the University of Illinois to draft a furlough policy. Starting August 16th, school leaders will have the authority to require faculty and academic professionals to take unpaid time off. Employees were notified of the action by U of I's President and the chancellors of the Urbana-Champaign, Springfield and Chicago campuses Wednesday. University spokesman Tom Hardy stresses ... officials are not yet declaring furlough days. He says school leaders adopted the new policy as a contingency plan to control costs should U of I face a budget shortfall. He says there's a great deal of uncertainty about how much funding the university will receive from the state.

"We didn't have this tool to be able to deal with controlling costs in an economic or fiscal crisis. Now we have this ability to deal with anything that arises. And deal with it in a way that we see is very common practice now in public and private sectors," says Hardy. Hardy says officials will begin negotiations to create a permanent furlough policy. But the head of a group representing academic professionals at the U of I Urbana campus says she doesn't think that's a good idea. Jenny Barrett of the Association for Academic Professionals says unpaid furlough days should only be a temporary policy at times when the university faces financial risk. She says otherwise, the budget breaking point that would require furloughs could become vague and prone to misue.