Students walk across the University of Oregon campus on a rainy March day in this 2015 file photo.
Alan Sylvestre / OPB
Administrators at the University of Oregon have stopped taking pay cuts, despite a $3.4 million dollar budget deficit due to the coronavirus pandemic.
In April, 21 administrators volunteered to take salary deductions of 10%-12% for six months in order to help offset a budget shortfall caused by the pandemic. UO Chief Finance Officer Jamie Moffitt said budget cuts, combined with other measures such as a hiring freeze and a travel freeze, has helped save money.
But the effects of the pandemic will still impact the university for the next few years.
“This year, the deficit that we’re projecting is between $3-4 million,” Moffitt said. “It’s not as large as it would otherwise be. And that’s because of these one-time savings. But once COVID disappears, I’m fully expecting a lot of those savings will also disappear. So we’re going to have some ongoing budget challenges that we’ll need to address.”
Student tuition, which makes up almost half of UO’s revenue, has also dropped 3.6% this year.