The Chicago State University Layoff Scorecard

Although the game is still in progress, here's my scorecard through the third inning:

I’m putting together data from the carnage of last Friday, attempting to create a snapshot of what the university looked like Monday morning. At this point, I have determined the fate of 157 employees, 90 administrators and 67 staff. That’s a little more than about one quarter of the total but should provide a representative sample.

Here are some of the numbers. Of the 90 administrators, only 27 were terminated. Of the 67 staff, 54 were laid off. Obviously, you had a better chance of survival if you had an administrative position. Some general patterns: Virtually all the senior administrators kept their positions. Of the 17 persons with President, Provost, or Vice President in their job titles, 15 remain. All the 25 Deans and Chairs were retained. So the total salary savings for those 42 positions amount to $240,000 a year, or $20,000 per month. That will certainly fix the budget problem.

Altogether, the salaries for the administrators retained come to $6.67 million, or an average of just under $106,000 per employee. The salary savings for the administrators terminated amount to $2 million per year, or an average of $74,316 per employee. Even more notable, 7 of those 27 administrators earned better than $100,000 per year. Remove them from the total, and the average administrative salary for those 20 others terminated drops to $51,882. The pattern seems pretty clear: save the high-salaried administrators, shed those making salaries as low as the neighborhood of $30,000.

For the staff, the total salaries of those laid off are $1.75 million, or an average salary of $38,049.65. At least 33 of those staff persons made salaries in the $30,000s, with 3 others earning less than $30,000. The average salary of the 13 survivors weighs in at $40,800, on a total of nearly $531,000. At this point in my data collection, the yearly salary savings for CSU amount to $3.75 million, or slightly over $300,000 per month.

As the situation remains fluid, these numbers will change dramatically. Yesterday, several people were “recalled” after spending what must have been a pleasant jobless weekend. Some other anecdotal information seems relevant: in the library, only 2 of the 14 staff members remain; all of the remaining Academic Advisors were apparently eliminated, meaning that all undergraduate advising at CSU will be done by the six persons in the First-Year Experience Office. Only one staff person (plus the Director) remains in Admissions. IT reportedly lost 8 persons. With the exception of one in Pharmacy and one in the College of Arts and Sciences, all the Associate or Assistant Dean positions were eliminated. Somewhere between 16 and 26 custodial workers lost their jobs.

I will continue to gather information and when I have something else to report, I will do so.