Gov. Martin O'Malley proposed last week furloughing more than 67,000 state workers for up to five days, depending on income, to save $34 million. The administration is in talks with unions representing state workers regarding a furlough plan for those employees, but it can impose furloughs without approval from the unions.
Even with the furloughs, the state faces a $150 million deficit in its $14 billion state operating budget.
At Towson University, officials have reviewed the furlough plan from 1992. At that time, Towson employees making less than $25,000 were not furloughed. Towson President Robert Caret said he was working to determine what that line would be this year. The university system has its own personnel policies and does not have to follow the same salary rules regarding furloughs as the state does.
The student member of the Board of Regents, Joshua L. Michael, proposed yesterday that the regents prohibit universities from reducing class hours under their furlough plans, noting that students won't be paying any less in tuition.
"If our primary goal here is to educate students and maintain quality, I can't think of a better way of doing that than maintaining classes," said Michael, a junior at UMBC.
But other regents said they wanted to give university presidents as much flexibility as possible in developing the furlough plans, and Michael's proposal was defeated.
The furlough days do not have to be consecutive, and employees can work on the days they are furloughed, but they are not required to do so.
This fall, the state cut $15 million from the university system's $4.1 billion operating budget, about $1 billion of which comes from state general funds. The system handled those cuts by imposing a hiring freeze, increasing class sizes and reducing program growth. The current round of cuts must come through furloughs and not program cuts.
Also yesterday, the regents approved two new degree programs. The University of Maryland law school won approval to offer a masters of law degree, a one-year program for students who already have their J.D. degree and want to focus on specialized areas including environmental law, constitutional law and business law. Bowie State University won approval to offer a B.S. in bioinformatics to prepare students for the biotechnology industry.
Both programs will be supported through tuition revenue and do not need additional funding, the universities said.
