Penn State commits to paying all employees through April — but future furloughs, layoffs not yet off table
Penn State has committed to paying all university employees both wages and benefits through the end of April, although future furloughs and layoffs aren’t out of the question and there will be belt-tightening in other areas, university officials said Tuesday morning during an online town hall.
President Eric Barron said in a news release that the university will wait until mid-April to determine whether furloughs or layoffs are necessary. Nick Jones, executive vice president and provost, also told the roughly 9,000 viewers that it’s “reasonable to assume” there will be no general salary increase for employees next year, and he said departments have also been asked “at this moment” not to fill positions unless they’re mission critical.
“While it’s too early to be specific, there is no question we’re going to be impacted (financially),” Jones said. “No enterprise across the nation, or across the world, is immune to the deep recession we’re now facing.”
However, Barron opened up the town hall on a positive note by promising continued wages and benefits for all university employees — including part-time workers — until the end of next month. By the middle of April, he said the university will seriously consider whether an extension of that is possible.
“Our objective is, with all the stress, for you not to have an abrupt financial dislocation when you’re dealing with so many other things,” Barron said.
According to a Penn State spokesperson, employees will be paid from the start of the remote learning period, which began March 16. But plenty of unknowns remain. Barron implied during the town hall meeting, which centered on questions from staff and faculty, that a lot of details still need to be ironed out.
He said, for example, that student workers and those making an hourly wage will still be paid. But he wasn’t sure how their pay might be determined if their hours and schedule varied from week to week.
“We’ll have to examine how it is that we will do that,” Barron said. “But our intent is student employees, (and) the full set of employees at Penn State University.”
Penn State shifted to remote learning March 16, and students will not be allowed to return to campus earlier than May. Employees deemed nonessential, or those able to work remotely, are also not on campus.
There are currently seven confirmed cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, in Centre County and one confirmed case on Penn State’s University Park campus.
This story was originally published March 24, 2020 at 4:26 PM.
