MUSC Furloughs 1200 and Layoffs Expected

By Tim Gehret
Reporter
Published: November 24, 2008

The Lowcountry’s largest state employer will eliminate jobs.

MUSC president Dr. Ray Greenberg announced today he expects a hand full of layoff’s to come after the holidays. Who will go is still undecided.
In the meantime, more than 1,200 MUSC employees will face a four-day mandatory furlough, or days off without pay, over four months starting in January.

“It is a big deal to employees who are living at the edge,” Greenberg said. “We struggled to keep it as low as possible.

The university has a total 5,000 employees. Which means more than 3,000, primarily high paid researchers, will be unaffected.
News 2 asked why the administration could not furlough all 5,000 employees for one day instead of a select 1,200 for four?

According to Greenberg researchers make money for MUSC.
“We can’t afford to have them not working. If they’re not here and not producing income, we lose more than we lose than from the state cuts.

He says the layoffs will only affect a hand full of employees. He clarified that projection as being around 10. He would not specify which positions saying the state has to approve those cuts.

While they wait, work must continue. That’s why a three day medical conference set for next month in the Virgin Islands will go on as planned. At least three top administrators will meet in St. Croix to discuss health disparities, an area of research MUSC is known for around the world.
One big reason this is significant, during the last round of cuts, MUSC announced it was postponing travel.
While the timing is unfortunate, Greenberg says these events have the potential to generate a lot of private money for research. Regardless of how it may look to the people being laid off or furloughed, not going, he says “would be negative for the institution and for the individual careers of the faculty involved.”

Several agencies, corporations, and universities co-sponsor the conference and officials say it is not being paid for with state money.

“I can assure you we don’t take any single day of furlough lightly here,” he says.

Greenberg himself will take eight days off which means he will forfeit about $7,000 in state money. He will continue to earn is hospital salary which is 451 thousand extra dollars a year.

His total salary is close to $700,000 a year.

The furlough will affect the College of Nursing, Dental Medicine, Academic Affairs Office, Library and the Office of Finance and Administration.

Here’s how the savings are expected to break down. 

The furlough is expected to save more than $1,000,000, not filling the 80 vacant jobs is expected to save MUSC close to $4,000,000

Layoffs will save MUSC more than $300,000. Miscellaneous cuts of more than $2,000,000 bringing the total projected savings to more than $7,000,000