USC could cut programs and furlough employees because of coronavirus

The University of South Carolina may consider furloughing employees or cutting programs to make up for coronavirus-induced budget shortfalls, according to an internal email sent Wednesday from Faculty Senate Chair Mark Cooper.

The budget shortfall will likely be “about twice as large as we faced in 2008,” Cooper said in the email, which went to other faculty senators. In 2008, the American economy was at the start of the Great Recession.

“In addition to hiring freezes and across-the-board reductions, we can anticipate furloughs, with sharper cuts for high-income administrators,” Cooper said in the email.

“To manage the anticipated longer-term consequences of enrollment declines...we may also be forced to close or reorganize academic programs,” Cooper said.

USC policy requires the administration to hear input from faculty before cutting programs and tenured faculty, according to policy Cooper cited in the email.

If the school does cut programs or tenured faculty members, the changes would likely not go into effect until 2021 at the earliest, Cooper said.

One bright spot for the university is that enrollment — where USC gets the lion’s share of revenue — has stabilized after President Robert Caslen announced in-person classes would resume in the fall, Cooper said in the email.

“We may yet hope for a strong student showing next year,” Cooper said in the email.

Thus far, USC has coped with estimated losses of between $20 million to $40 million by implementing a partial hiring freeze, canceling most pay increases and canceling most travel, according to a previous article from The State.

That $20 million to $40 million estimate is just for this fiscal year, which ends June 30, and it’s unclear what the impact next year will be, USC spokesman Jeff Stensland said in an email.

“We anticipate a much bigger hit next year, but don’t have final estimates yet. A lot will depend on where we end up with fall enrollment,” Stensland said.

Caslen has said he does not want to layoff employees and is looking elsewhere to trim the budget, Stensland said.

“We are exploring many different forms of cost-saving options for the new fiscal year. In fact, we have a joint committee of faulty and staff tasked with generating novel ideas from our campus community,” Stensland said. “Finances will be quite different as a result of COVID-19, so we need to do everything we can to find efficiencies and reduce unnecessary costs in order to protect our core education and research mission.”

The State has reached out to Cooper for comment.

This story was originally published May 12, 2020 at 5:00 PM with the headline "USC could cut programs and furlough employees because of coronavirus."