UNL to look for cuts in hiring, utilities

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BY MELISSA LEE / Lincoln Journal Star

University of Nebraska-Lincoln Chancellor Harvey Perlman has taken to turning off his computer every time he leaves his office for more than two hours.

Sure, it’s a minor hassle. “The damn thing takes forever to boot up,” he joked to faculty leaders Tuesday.

But, he said, turning serious, every dollar he saves by shutting down his machine is a dollar that won’t have to be trimmed from UNL’s budget down the road.

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And that would mean fewer staff cuts for UNL as it weathers the economic downturn.

In grim opening remarks at Tuesday’s Academic Senate meeting, Perlman urged his colleagues to take similar cost-cutting steps.

“We’ll save jobs and people,” he told faculty.

Monday, NU President J.B. Milliken alerted faculty and staff across the university that budget cuts are looming and each campus should look for reductions now so extra dollars can be carried over to the next fiscal year.

Perlman said UNL will seek cuts in two main areas: hiring and utilities.

Like the rest of the university system, most of UNL’s budget goes toward personnel costs. So to minimize future layoffs, he said, new hires will need approval from the appropriate vice chancellor.

“This is not in any way to be regarded as a hiring freeze,” he said, adding he wouldn’t implement such a freeze “unless you put a gun to my head.”

“But I do want to check on what we’re doing and who we’re hiring for the rest of this year.”

He acknowledged strict oversight on hiring could put short-staffed departments in a bind. And though UNL will continue to make some hires, the prospect of having to forgo hiring a talented candidate is difficult to face.

But the alternative — laying off a current employee — is extremely painful, he said.

The hiring squeeze will be implemented in all areas of the university, including administrative units, he said.

UNL also will seek to make a dent in its utilities bill, now at about $20 million for the year.

The campus has made progress in saving electricity, but not nearly enough, Perlman said.

He recently returned from a trip to China, where he said it wasn’t uncommon for university classrooms to be unlit all day.

By contrast, at UNL, “it looks like we’re getting ready to film a 3-D Hollywood movie out here in the hallways,” he said.

“So we’re going to go around and unscrew light bulbs,” he said. “I’m serious. … Right now, we’re talking about jobs.”

He encouraged staff to turn off computers and other electrical equipment when not in use. Campus leaders also are exploring the possibility of consolidating evening classes so more buildings can be shut down at night, he said.

Departments that make the most progress in trimming utility costs will be rewarded, he said — either with actual dollars or fewer cuts in the coming budget cycle.

The NU system already shouldered tens of millions of dollars in cuts earlier this decade, when academic departments were eliminated and students were handed four straight years of double-digit tuition increases.

At that time, Perlman managed his campus’ share of the cuts with “vertical” reductions — eliminating whole departments rather than making across-the-board cuts, which he believes put UNL at risk of mediocrity.

Some faculty objected, saying the campus should absorb the cuts equally to help preserve jobs. But Perlman stuck to his strategy, and he said he’ll opt for vertical cuts this time around, too, if major reductions are required.

That would give the university its best shot at preserving its core priorities — undergraduate education and research — as well as the momentum it has enjoyed in recent years, he said.

“(Our momentum) may have to pause,” he said. “But the key is to be positioned, when this economy turns around, to take giant steps forward.”

Reach Melissa Lee at 473-2682 or mlee@journalstar.com.