Well, I found out about it from NPR news first, while driving home through the interminable rush-hour traffic: every Great Desert University employee is to be furloughed between now and the end of the fiscal year, June 30. When I raced in the house and pulled up my e-mail, yea verily, there was a message from Our Beloved President, outlining the plan to balance the university’s budget on its employees’ backs.
Administrators are being zapped for 15 days—that’s three weekswith no pay! Classified staff, which would include my associate editor, who earns less than she was earning as a graduate research assistant, get off with a mere ten days. And everyone else—that would be moi—will face 12 no-pay days.
Apparently we’re being allowed to string it out over the rest of the fiscal year; 17 1/2 weeks. The particular configuration of the furloughs, though, depends on one’s supervisor’s whim. So, for me, if they allow me to to take off one day a week, that would cut my pay by two days for each paycheck—$480—between now and the end of the fiscal year. Assuming, of course, that I last for the rest of the fiscal year.
Think of that: a $480 pay cut. Thank you so much, Georgie Porgie and all your doctrinaire ideologue puppeteers!
We can, we’re told, claim unemployment insurance for the unpaid days. Unemployment in Arizona is pretty piddling—a tiny fraction of what you earn. And it’s such a hassle to claim it that if you have any other source of income to fall back on, it’s hardly worth bothering.
Our bread-and-butter client just e-mailed asking if we’ll take on not one but two new projects. You betcha, sister!
But think how much all those top administrators are losing in their 3 weeks! (If my heavy irony is not conveyed in my prose, trust me, it’s in my heart).
Hoping this will be the worst of it.
Evil thought??? Can you use the sick days accrued to “cover” your furlough days?
Take the 12 days all at once, over the Christmas Holiday (or any other desired time) and file for unemployment once! Pick a time when your savings can help, or you have a plans that jive with needing time off for! Make the best out of a bad situation, that’s all you can do.
Doors are (maybe) closing but windows are opening. Wonderful!
@ frugal scholar: The administrators are taking 15 days, which sounds staggering except that they earn six-figure salaries (in Crow’s case, by the time you add in a bunch of perks and his wife’s job acquired through his influence, the number of figures rises to seven). So a 15-day pay cut for those folks would cause significantly less pain than a 12-day cut for someone who is making $50,000 or $60,000 or a 10-day cut for those who make $18,000 to $24,000 (no joke! we have f/t secretarial jobs that pay 18 grand!). Each of my sick days is worth $120 at retirement. I’m not letting go of any of those. Plus of course they have to pay me: the idea is to have days that they don’t pay for.
@ Neal Hawes: We’re being asked not to take all the time at once, because they’re afraid of shutting down the university. Plus we have to take them before the end of the fiscal year, June 30. Last night the local Play-Nooz ran a piece on the state unemployment office, which is so overloaded that it takes weeks to get unemployment started, and they cannot and will not speak to people over the telephone. The likelihood of actually extracting unemployment for the furlough days is probably pretty close to nil.
@SimplyForties: LOL! Those windows are opening so people can jump out of them.
I hope you don’t think I was sympathizing with the administrators. I am well aware of how much those people pay themselves! (Hence my mention of irony!)
I had the idea about sick days, because at that time you were afraid you’d lose them if you were laid off. This would have been a way to claim them. Luckily, as a later post indicates, that is not true.
I work at a school also, so I am watching this with great interest.
LOL! No, FrugalScholar…it came across as pretty ironic.
Today’s post at the HR site specifically says we can’t substitute sick days or vacation days for these no-pay days.
Since I posted earlier this morning, I’ve learned that a friend was told the SAME thing at the West campus HR office that I heard at the main campus: if you’re laid off, you can’t collect your RASL. {sigh} Those people are soooo confused. Not only that, but when a friend called HR and asked if faculty on nine-month contracts would have the furlough days prorated down from 12, the person who answered the phone said, “Uhhhh… I dunno.” About five minutes later, the HR website was updated with a page that explained that yes, nine-month faculty would serve commensurately fewer payless days. Apparently, they’re not telling the HR reps any more than they’re telling the rest of the slaves!
LOL – hey, I’m trying to find a bright side here!