About 40 University of Western Ontario staff members have applied for the voluntary retirement incentive, Provost & Vice President (Academic) Fred Longstaffe told Senate.
Longstaffe offered an update on the university’s budget at the Senate meeting held Friday, March 20.
As part of its plan to address operating budget shortfalls, the university offered a one-time voluntary retirement incentive to regular, full-time Professional Managerial Association (PMA) eligible employees, continuing and sessional employees of The University of Western Ontario Staff Association (UWOSA) and regular, full-time employees of Select Administrative Group Employees (SAGE).
The deadline for applications was March 16, and Mark Shannon, director of staff relations for Human Resources, says the university will review the applications and employees will be notified whether the application has been accepted or declined before the end of the month.
Those who are offered the retirement package are expected to respond by March 31.
Although the deadline for the retirement incentive has passed for staff, the modified phased retirement option for faculty members, which allows them to reduce their workload over one or two years prior to full retirement, is still open.
“The deans, I know, are working with various faculty colleagues who have indicated some interest in taking some of the retirement options that are available and we’ll have more information on that closer to the end of the month,” he says.
Longstaffe says the university will be closely watching the provincial budget announcement on March 26. But considering the current financial climate, he is “not very hopeful that there will be anything in the provincial budget that will help us with our operating budget pressures.”
He is also “hopeful” there will not be any cutbacks to provincial operating budget funding for universities.
“We are hopeful there won’t be any reductions to the operating budget grants that the government provides to the universities.”
The university continues to examine the operating budget for areas, specifically non-salary items, where spending can be curtailed.
A second town hall meeting to discuss the university budget and the provincial budget will be held on Monday, March 30 from 3-4:30 p.m. in Room 1R40 of the Richard Ivey School of Business.