30 staffer positions at the University of Kentucky’s largest college will be eliminated in the coming weeks.
Downsizing at the UK College of Arts and Sciences comes as a series of previously stable contracts with foreign governments fell through – opening up a $4 million budget hole this fiscal year. Countries like Saudi Arabia, Brazil, and Ecuador had thrown their financial support behind English as a second language courses for their students.
"The hope and expectation was that these contracts would continue for a long period of time and would result in a stable source of growing revenue for the college and that's what had happened for several years, but with the discontinuation of those contracts obviously the revenue have dissipated or gone away and a shortfall resulted," UK spokesman Jay Blanton explains.
Blanton points to various reasons for the drop off in contracts, including the economic conditions in those countries. The administration is currently informing the college of the rationale for the cuts. Affected employees will be notified in the next few weeks.
"The areas impacted most in the college will be areas like finance, information technology, and then obviously staff and lecture positions that were supporting those contracts," he says.
Officials stress that the layoffs are unrelated to ongoing cuts to UK’s state appropriation. Blanton says the college will undergo a realignment over the next few years to get on a more “firm financial footing.”
