Pennsylvania Code › Title 22 - EDUCATION › Part X - Board of State College and University Directors › Chapter 155 - PERSONNEL › GENERAL PROVISIONS FOR RETRENCHMENT OF EMPLOYES › Section 155.1 - Generally

Current through Register Vol. 54, No. 28, July 13, 2024
(a) The costs of
				  operating the Pennsylvania State Colleges are generated through essentially
				  four sources: salaries paid and benefits provided for all state college
				  employes; instructional and nonstructional supplies and materials; physical
				  plant maintenance; and specialized auxilliary operations such as student
				  residence halls and campus dining services. Within any stated time period, when
				  these costs are greater than revenues received, the colleges are obligated to
				  bring total expenditures and total revenues into balance.
(b) As of the present time, anticipated
				  expenditures by the state colleges for fiscal years 1975-1976 and 1976-1977
				  will exceed their anticipated revenues from all sources. This judgment is based
				  upon an extrapolation to 1976-1977 of the current levels and probably rates of
				  increase of costs of current services and supplies, together with a forecast of
				  probable total revenues available throught 1976-1977.
(c) The state colleges cannot risk a delay
				  until next year to initiate a process that will more likely assure the
				  achievement of a balance of revenues and expenses during 1976-1977. A college
				  is a very complex institution to reorganize within a framework of declining
				  capability to finance a group of services and programs. Such a reorganization
				  is a particularly difficult challenge if the college attempts to retain its
				  academic strength and guard its future while simultaneously "laying off" staff,
				  reducing services, and "scrimping" on supplies. But this is the challenge for
				  the state colleges.
(d) Because of
				  the difficult decisions that must be made, and because of the state colleges'
				  contractual obligations to inform employes by specified calendar dates of the
				  termination of their services, the process of planning for retrenchment at the
				  state colleges must begin immediately, and the decisions resulting from the
				  planning process must be announced formally by September 8, 1975.
(e) For the past two years, the colleges have
				  operated with austerity or semi-austerity budgets. They have sacrificed their
				  supplies and materials inventories and deferred and cancelled physical plant
				  maintenance to a point that neither of these two sources of expenditures
				  represents a significant level of potential cost savings in future years. In
				  fact, further attempts at major savings in these areas may extensively damage
				  the physical and educational resources of the colleges. While a reduction in
				  the auxiliary services offered by a college might result in cost savings, this,
				  too, appears to be of very limited potential for achieving balanced budgets for
				  fiscal years 1975-1976 and 1976-1977.
(f) These regulations are intended primarily
				  to assist the president of each college in the process of determining which
				  positions in the college should be abolished and how the decisions should be
				  made about specific employes who are to be "laid off." There has already been
				  significant experience at each college in reducing nonpersonnel associated
				  costs. Employe layoff decisions are, unquestionably, the most difficult to
				  make. These regulations, hopefully, will allow the appropriate retrenchment
				  judgments to be made in a manner that reduces as much as possible the
				  inevitably adverse effects of such decisions upon each college.