February 5, 2010. Where have we heard this before?
If Palm Beach County School District Superintendent Art Johnson opts in as a late comer to the FAU Presidential Search, he may have a leg up on other candidates in the art of subtle workplace intimidation. It seems that whenever public education administrators in South Florida want to keep workers cowering in the fields and chicken coops they cry “Layoffs! Layoffs! Layoffs!” Johnson and his administrative entourage conjured up the layoff bogey on Palm Beach County school teachers earlier this week.
According to the Palm Beach Post, in an internal memo released on February 3 Johnson said he will have to give layoffs “serious consideration.” The district’s Chief Financial Officer, Mike Burke, further stated that when federal stimulus money has run its course in 2012, “that’ll be a pretty big shortfall. We’ve done a good job of protecting employees from job losses, but as we continue to face more budget shortfalls, it may be impossible to continue without some reduction in the size of our workforce.”
Yet county teachers’ union president Robert Dow asserts that school district administrators are “painting a gloomier budget scenario to avoid paying better salaries. ‘The district puts its teachers and other employees last,'” Dow says. The same may be said of FAU administrators and trustees’ treatment of the University’s faculty body, from maintaining the second-lowest salaries in the state, to reorganizations that circumvent the Collective Bargaining Agreement and target tenured faculty for abrupt termination.
Where, specifically, has the layoff hobgoblin reared its ugly head before? Why, in the days and weeks leading up to the PERC Special Magistrate’s decision of a modest salary increase for FAU Faculty. One year ago then-President Frank Brogan and Provost John Pritchett repeatedly invoked the layoff bugbear in what seemed like every public pronouncement. The following are a few examples from the No Comment: 2009 year end review post.
“You know that I do not, nor will I ever, deal with scenarios of horror just to make a point or frighten people … I’m going to begin using terminology I have not used to this point, like layoffs.” –FAU President Frank Brogan, Palm Beach Post, January 21, 2009.
“It will be simply impossible to absorb an additional $15 million reduction without impacting personnel. This next round of reductions will require those sorts of draconian actions.” –FAU President Frank Brogan, South Florida Sun-Sentinel, January 22, 2009.
“What we are facing are dramatic state reoccurring reductions [sic] and what we are looking at in federal assistance is a one-time injection of much needed dollars … I hate being the wet blanket when it comes to stimulus money. I’m trying to be a realist.”–FAU President Frank Brogan, Palm Beach Post, March 21, 2009.
Like clockwork Pritchett made the rounds to each college faculty assembly with an agonizingly detailed fiscal Sturm und Drange that was unquestioningly parroted by subordinate administrators. However, an independent assessment of FAU’s budget conducted by UFF found that FAU was “in excellent shape financially,” with “Total Net Assets ha[ving] increased from $400,795,247 as of June 30, 2003 to $709,653,731, [on June 30, 2008] of which $73,456,329 were Unrestricted Net Assets.”
One will no doubt find a great deal of “play” in a $542 million budget, with considerable discretion for which way–and for whom–the purse strings stretch. The fact that faculty remain an extremely low priority may be contrasted with how FAU administrators and trustees recently issued $130 million in debt to erect more buildings. Or how they are now bound and determined to establish a medical college. The next time FAU administrators try to call up the layoff bogey, faculty may wish to alert the University’s bondholders of an imminent default. That might just put the bogey to rest.