Depending on who was speaking Monday, the budget proposed for the University of Minnesota would either spend too much or invest too little. Force regressive pay cuts or offer progressive sacrifices. Lack long-term planning or be forward-thinking.
The mood swung back and forth as 19 professors, employees and students told the Board of Regents what they make of a plan to plug a $152 million budget gap for the coming year.
That plan handles growing costs and shrinking state funding with increases to tuition and scholarships and cuts to pay and staffing. Speakers split on whether those temporary pay cuts -- 1.15 percent for most employees and 2.3 percent for top administrators -- are fair.
Allison Davis-Blake, dean of the U's Carlson School of Management, called the proposed plan "appropriate," and "inherently progressive, in that individuals with higher incomes will contribute more to solving the budget problem."
She left the podium, and Tamara Thompson took it, arguing the opposite.
"We need this university to share the pain that we're experiencing," said Thompson, a support staff member in the medical school. "A 4 or 5 percent reduction on a six-figure salary can't be compared to the pain of a layoff for someone making $35K a year."
Several members of the clerical workers' union contended that mandated days off should have been voluntary.
U President Robert Bruininks has responded that a voluntary plan would have come up short, forcing layoffs.
