UC system: layoffs, not pay cuts

Our plan would be simple. To meet Yudof's savings targets, a number of employees would be laid off sufficient to save 8% of the payroll. The choices in staff cuts would be difficult, but they are necessary if the regents are unwilling to raise tuition further. Specific decisions on whom to lay off would be decentralized to campuses, and within campuses to schools or departments.

In the case of tenured faculty, for better or worse, they have a good measure of protection. But if an entire unit is eliminated, tenured faculty within it can be fired. Thus, while tenure means that we cannot be fired for writing this Op-Ed article, the university can decide that it does not have the resources to have a law school.

Those who remain would get full pay but be asked to pick up much of the slack by cutting out their least productive 8% to 10% of activities. Together, these two steps would make UC stronger and more efficient, and we might get done nearly as much as before.

The budget cut is enormous, and if people and units are cut, mistakes will surely be made. But sometimes the only way to find out if you really need something is to have it gone and feel the pain. If the pain is severe, you rebuild it. If not, the organization is more streamlined.

Perhaps there is now only time to cut salaries and not people or units. In that case, the regents could cut salaries for only six months and demand employee reductions to start in January.

Then, those like our dinner colleague who are frustrated by UC bureaucracy might even come to view the current crisis as an opportunity. A crisis is a terrible thing to waste.