University prepares for $16 million budget loss
The University of Texas at Brownsville and Texas Southmost College announced Friday that 34 jobs would be eliminated as a result of a $16 million budget cut over the next two years.
“Nothing we can do is going to make it OK completely,” UTB-TSC President Juliet V. Garcia said, noting that the employees who are losing their job will be offered counseling and help with resume building and job hunting.
The $16 million cut amounts to 17 percent of the UTB-TSC budget, she said.
A reduction in work force had never taken place during her two-decade tenure as UTB-TSC president, Garcia said.
The 34 UTB-TSC employees may work as long as their position is funded, which is Aug. 31, she said. They will be not be required to report to the university during that time but will continue to be paid, she said. They will be invited to attend classes to help find a new job.
UTB-TSC Staff Senate President David Marquez said faculty and staff worked with administration to prepare for this situation when the news from Austin did not look promising.
“That moment of imminence has now become a moment of truth and sadly 34 of our staff brothers and sisters must bear the brunt of the implications that a situation like this brings about,” he wrote in an email. “Their hardships today will help guarantee the future prosperity of our children tomorrow.”
On behalf of those who lost their jobs, Marquez asked fellow UTB-TSC employees to understand their sacrifice.
Garcia said no fulltime faculty positions were cut and stressed that the reduction in force is not related to the university’s developing split from TSC.
A letter from Garcia went out to faculty and staff Friday discussing the lay-offs.
She said UT System presidents agreed to drop the budget bombshell at relatively the same time this week. About 1,000 UT System employees and their families statewide will be affected.
The UTB-TSC budget cut comes as enrollment grows, with an 8 percent increase in 2010-2011 over the previous year, Garcia said.
The state budget for the next biennium, or HB1, was signed into law last week by Gov. Rick Perry and was cut by $15 billion affecting agencies around the state, the university said.
Garcia criticized the Legislature for not allowing any tax increases and mentioned state Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr.’s failed soda tax bill.
“A penny, one penny tax on soft drinks — called a luxury tax — would have solved the state’s budget deficit. Now think about that,” she said. “No taxes were allowed to be added to the budget discussion. ... It was not a difficult thing to do, but the ideologies were so disparate in the Legislature that they could not resolve. It is a real heavy hit.”
Brownsville Democrats Lucio and state Rep. Rene Oliveira echoed each other when they said they opposed key portions of the budget that would negatively affect Texans statewide and blamed it on Republicans, who have a supermajority in the Legislature.
Both men said they were saddened by the circumstances surrounding the UTB-TSC job losses and also about the reductions at other state agencies.
The problem of a massive deficit will likely be faced when the next biennium’s budget needs to be decided, they said.
“I don’t think people understand how this is going to play out,” Lucio said.
Oliveira said Texans would likely come face to face with the cuts when the budget takes full effect Sept. 1.
“Governor Perry contin-ues to sugar coat everything and the reality of it is we have major revenue problems,” he said. “I hope and pray there will be a reaction at the ballot box.”
Garcia said UTB-TSC salaries were not reduced because doing that would not have made up the budget gap.
The spring estimate of a cut of 150 jobs was avoided, she said. The early esti-mates had placed the budget reduction between 16 and 22 percent.
Garcia said Friday’s layoffs would be the only ones to occur for the next biennium: “It’s the last time we will do it for state appropriations. ... We wanted to do it in a way that said, ‘No. This is it. We’re going to go back to work. Don’t worry. Your job is secure for the next two years.’ We’ve taken care of the budget deficit with this one action.”
She said the layoffs come from different departments, from the library to maintenance to clerks.
Her voice wavered slightly when she said someone in her own office was laid off.
“It’s hard,” she said. “I’ve fired people. You have to do that for nonperformance and that’s hard. This is 10 times harder because the person’s done nothing wrong.”
She declined to release any sort of list detailing which departments were hit by the job cuts.
She did note that individuals who were TSC employees at the time the partnership agreement was signed must be taken back by the junior college, according to clauses governing possible dissolution of the joint operation.
“You would think after 20 years everybody’s gone,” she said. “Well, they’re not. There’s still about 120 that are still here that belonged to TSC before the partnership, so TSC would be obligated to pick them back up again if they wanted to go back.”
Jrarmendariz@brownsvilleherald.com
