Units' plans to deal with cuts in the current state budget include eliminating more than 47 positions, a University official said.
Laurie Charest, associate vice chancellor for human resources, said most of the personnel cuts involve vacant positions but at least one filled position also will be lost. Cuts already have taken effect.
Charest said any employees losing their jobs will be treated under the University's Reduction in Force policy, which gives them "re-employment priority."
Service on campus is likely to suffer because of the cuts, Charest said.
"Things may get slower, [with] longer processing times, delays in projects," she said.
The cuts stemmed from a $1.37 million reduction in the University's 1998 budget. That reduction was mandated by an Office of State Budget and Management "span of control" study that examined administrative reporting levels and supervisor-to-employee ratios in administrative and library units of all 16 UNC System campuses.
Based on data gathered in the study, the state established benchmarks saying UNC System schools should have no more than seven administrative reporting levels within divisions, and University supervisors should oversee an average of 5.8 people. Carolina had as many as 11 reporting levels and a supervisor-to-employee ratio of less than 1:5.8 at the time of the study in April 1997.
Carolina officials are reviewing units' revised organizational charts to see if they comply with span of control benchmarks.
General Administration recommended that campuses distribute budget cuts so that divisions most out of line with benchmarks took the largest reductions. Divisions meeting the standards should go untouched, General Administration said.
The University Budget Committee agreed the campus should go with that recommendation, based on input from the University Priorities and Budget Committee.
Finance and administration bore the brunt of span of control cuts at Carolina, losing $928,203. Other cuts: academic affairs, $112,761; health affairs, $33,209; student affairs, $108,365; University advancement, $34,946; minority affairs, $1,205; chancellor's office, $3,830; provost's office, $19,774; and information and technology services, $128,768.
The University has drafted a "white paper" response to the study. According to Charest, the paper argues among other points that the study used non-university state offices as a standard of comparison for the state's colleges, a comparison that doesn't recognize the differences in the missions of the institutions.
Carolina officials have questioned the study's methodology, saying it didn't necessarily reflect universities' functions.
Charest said the hope is that the white paper will communicate the University's position on any future span of control cuts.
"If there are going to be any further cuts, we hope our points will be taken into consideration," she said.
The white paper now is being circulated for feedback from campus officials, and then a final version will go to General Administration.
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