More Furlough Questions and Answers

Phillip Coonley, CSUEU Chief of Staff, sent this out yesterday evening:

Hello CSUEU BOARD OF DIRECTORS AND STAFF:

During today's Board of Directors meeting, some additional questions about the proposed furlough program were raised. I contacted the Chancellor's office to get answers to those questions:

Q1. Will retired annuitants and/or foundation employees be furloughed?
A1. Our intention is that everyone on the CSU payroll be furloughed. For instance, the furloughs would apply to FERP (CFA annuitants).
A1. CUS does not bargain for the foundations; further, there is no general fund money in foundations.

Q2. What about housing employees? Students who live in dorms won't be furloughed.
A2. We are starting off assuming we are including everyone; we will re-think inclusion of those that impact student services, like RAs.

Q3. What about CMA – they have staff who are on cruise ships. How can you furlough folks on cruise?
A3.There is probably no way to furlough employees on cruise.

Q4. What about Community Services Specialists? At CMA, CSSs are the only law enforcement on campus.
A4. We are still considering this – we have not come to a final conclusion about public safety; we will have to look at these situations more closely.

Q5. What about Grant employees?
A5. If they are on our payroll, they will get furloughed. We are looking at it from an equity standpoint. Our system can't separate folks out based on funding.

Q6. How soon would furloughs take effect?
A6. The soonest we could make it happen is probably August, and then only if everything aligned. We will have to play catch-up for July, because we are basing our cost-savings estimates on 24 furlough days for the year.

Q7. What about converting staff to 11/12 and taking an entire month off?
A7. This is subject to bargaining, but we believe we can capture more savings through campus closures twice per month, while still being able to manage most of our operations.

Thank-you for submitting these questions. One question for which I still have not received a complete answer is how the CUSP will fill the gap between the $275 million they will be saving through the furlough program and the $583 million that represents the total amount of cuts currently being anticipated. We do know that they anticipate savings by virtue of closing campuses on the furlough days. I do anticipate receiving a more comprehensive answer within the next day, and will pass it on as soon as I do.

Please be sure to forward any additional questions to me and I will follow up. Please also continue to monitor our budget update page: http://www.csueu.org/Home/StateandCSUBudgetCentral/tabid/902/Default.aspx and specifically the furlough FAQ page: http://www.csueu.org/Home/StateandCSUBudgetCentral/FurloughsFAQ/tabid/928/Default.aspx.

Phillip Coonley, Chief of Staff
California State University Employees Union (CSUEU)