Layoffs could be looming at Virginia’s public colleges and universities as officials comb through already-tight budgets looking for money to save.
Officials at Piedmont Virginia Community College and the University of Virginia are among those schools submitting proposed budget cutting measures to Gov. Timothy M. Kaine.
Those proposals are due to be submitted Friday.
The cuts proposed to state schools’ budgets are being sent to Kaine in 5, 10, and 15 percent increments, although the governor could choose to cut anywhere in between, up to 15 percent.
Any cuts that go higher than 15 percent would require action from the state’s legislature.
“If the cuts hit 10 or 15 percent, we’re going to see a sharp curtailment of educational services,” PVCC President Frank Friedman said Tuesday at a Charlottesville Regional Chamber of Commerce breakfast at the Doubletree Hotel.
“I don’t know if any agency can handle that without substantial layoffs. I know we can’t. 5 percent? Yeah, we can handle that. When it gets up to 10 percent, we’re looking at substantial layoffs,” he said.
Roughly 85 percent of PVCC’s budget is tied up in employee salaries and benefits.
Colette Sheehy, UVa’s vice president for management and budget, said recently that the rate of employee attrition in the past has kept the university from having to lay people off.
Between 75 percent and 80 percent of UVa’s budget is related to employee salaries and benefits, Sheehy estimated.
Sheehy said the cuts the university is proposing do not include money for financial aid or the teaching hospital.
Kaine ordered state agencies to provide the plans for cuts because of Virginia’s projected shortfall, which ballooned Tuesday to be as large as $2.9 billion, nearly triple the amount legislators predicted last month.
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