UNC system leaders said Friday that they were lobbying hard for authorization from state Legislature to give furloughs to university workers as one more tool to prevent or reduce layoffs.

The legislature, which faces an $800 million revenue shortfall, is working to reconcile different versions of the budget passed by the House and Senate. The House version has $175 million in cuts for the UNC system and the Senate version $54 million.

Under the House version of the budget, university leaders say they would have to slash 1,700 jobs, with about 1,000 of those filled. Many of those would be faculty positions, system President Erskine Bowles said, because after trimming 23 percent of the system's administrative costs last year, and losing $575 million from its budget in the past few years, there was almost nothing left to cut outside the classrooms.

Furloughs would save $8 million a day, Bowles said.

At that rate, seven days of furloughs could more than cover the Senate cuts.

Furloughs would only be used as a last resort to save jobs after other means of cutting had fallen short, system leaders said.

"I think with furloughing, we're looking for some wiggle room something to help us piece it together until things get better and we have some permanent plan in place," said UNC Board of Governors Chairwoman Hannah Gage. "We want to have every possible tool we can have to protect the quality of the system, and furloughing would help."

Bowles said he thought the Senate would back the necessary enabling legislation, and some House members would, too. It was crucial, he said, to preserve as many jobs as possible, particularly faculty positions, until the recession passes.

"I hope they will allow us to do it," he said. "It would be a shame to destroy the university, and the academic portion of the university for what should be, hopefully, a short term economic problem."

He said that he thought university employees also would support the idea as long as it was clear that the system leaders had take every other step they could to avoid firing people.

Bowles said he wasn't sure exactly how any furlough would be implemented. He said that he and the chancellors of the various universities would talk about that at their regular meeting at the end of the month.

It's obvious, he said, that furloughs cut into productivity, but one way to blunt that impact might be to schedule them on days where employees were less productive anyway, such as the last workday before major holidays.

Updated, 11:15 a.m.

The State Senate's budget proposal would grant the UNC system authority to furlough its employees.

The university wants this and in recent weeks has lobbied extensively for the authority, a formal mechanism it would need before implementing the unpaid time off.

UNC system President Erskine Bowles has said furloughs, while not ideal, would be far preferable to the level of job cuts he said would occur if Gov. Beverly Perdue's proposed budget was approved.

Under that budget, about 1,200 jobs would be lost within the university system, half of which would be faculty positions, Bowles has said.

The Senate budget, which rolls out today, is said to be somewhat friendlier to education. It proposes a 4 percent budget cut, which is 2 percent less than Perdue's proposal.

"It's a great step forward from the governor's budget for our students," said Ernie Murphrey, the UNC system's vice president for finance.

To help offset that 4 percent cut, the Senate proposal would allow campuses to increase tuition by as much as $750.

It would scrap the law enacted last year that takes tuition revenues away from the campuses and deposits it into the state's general fund. 

Murphrey emphasized that tuition won't necessarily go up simply because the university has the authority to raise it.

"We're going to have to analyze it and talk to the campus about what to do," Murphrey said. "We're asking the campuses what they'd do if they had that authority."

Check back here at at www.newsobserver.com for more details as they come out.

UNC system officials want the power this year to institute furloughs across the public university system.

UNC system President Erskine Bowles and others say the measure would be preferable to the more than 1,000 layoffs that would be necessary if the spending plan Perdue proposed last week was adopted.

Perdue called for a 4 percent cut to the UNC system's budget, which would be added to a 2 percent cut included in the 2-year budget approved last year.

Taken together, those cuts would force the elimination of about 1,200 jobs across the system, half of which would be faculty, Bowles has said.

Instituting furloughs would spread the pain but might save jobs, officials argue.

"The thought of the damage 1,200 fewer faculty and staff will permanently do to our university and the quality of education we offer our students makes me sick," Bowles wrote in a recent e-mail to Andy Willis, Perdue's senior advisor for governmental affairs. "I know it does our governor too."

University officials have said for weeks already that the loss of the more than 900 jobs eliminated during last year's budget-cut process was nearly crippling, and campuses can't do much more. 

The university system must be formally granted the authority to institute furloughs.

"Furloughing would be the absolute last option and only if we felt the cuts would be so big its the only alternative to laying people off," said Hannah Gage, chairwoman of the UNC system's Board of Governors. 

Last year, North Carolina imposed a 10-hour furlough on all state workers.

Faculty and staff leaders within the university system have already signed off on the furloughs as an acceptable alternative, officials say.

"There's nothing worse than losing a colleague," said McKay Coble, chair of the faculty council at UNC-Chapel Hill. "If furlough is the way to go, I'd much rather do that."

State Sen. Richard Stevens, R-Wake, co-chairman of the appropriations committee on education, said the university should have the authority in case it needs to use it.

"I hope it doesn't come to that," Stevens said. "But I think it's good for the university system to have all the tools it needs. 

It doesn't look like state education leaders are okay with the Wake school board's request to cut the school day by a year to allow employees to serve their furlough time.

As noted in today's article by Lynn Bonner, State Education CEO Bill Harrison said "I don't think so" when asked whether a waiver would be granted to Wake. Instead, the state Board of Education adopted procedures for when employees can take their 10 hours off.

The state is saying teachers can use planning periods on instructional days so long as substitutes don't need to be hired. That could increase pressure on Wake to use the early release and early dismissal time on Wednesdays.

Tonight's tornado-plagued school board meeting is finally done.

The board was meeting in closed session when the tornado warning was announced. The board members and other people still at Wake Forest Road relocated to the interior of the building — the first-floor offices of Growth and Planning.

Amid a crowd of parents and kids who had come for Spotlight on Students, the board reconvened the meeting. The board then passed the resolution calling on the state to let them have less than 180 days of school so that employees can use their furlough time.

How does the idea of closing school for one day sound as a way to help school employees take off the 10 hours required under Gov. Bev Perdue's furlough order?

That idea was proposed at today's school board meeting by Jennifer Lanane, president of Wake NCAE. She argued that school employees won't find the time any other way to take off the 10 hours.

Lanane asked the school board to back the group's call for closing school for one day. There was no immediate reaction from the school board.

UPDATE

The school board passed a resolution asking the state to let them shorten the school year by a day.

Money will also be on the school board's mind today as it reacts to the state's efforts to deal with the projected $3 billion shortfall this fiscal year.

Staff will likely discuss Friday's memo from the state asking school districts to return $41 million from this fiscal year's budget. Wake's on the hook for $3.9 million, which won't be easy to find considering that the fiscal year ends June 30 and much of the money has already been spent.

Staff will also ask the board to approve an employee pay reduction of one-half of one percent to comply with Gov. Perdue's recent budget order. Interestingly, it looks like the board will be asked to approve pay reductions for all employees — not just those that are funded by the state

There's still not much clarity on how teachers are supposed to use the 10 hours of furlough time mandated for state employees by Gov. Perdue.

As noted in today's article, it looks like the state Board of Education will be asked to approve a policy saying that teachers can't take off on days that students are in session. That's because it would cost money to hire substitute teachers.

While it looks like teacher workdays would have to be used, the mechanism for scheduling the time for the state's teachers will be a pain.

If you're wondering how schools will deal with teachers taking 10 hours of time off as part of Gov. Perdue's latest budget order, you're definitely not alone.

As noted in today's article by Rob Christensen and Mark Johnson, Perdue ordered that all state employees take a pay a cut of one half of 1 percent of their annual salary for the rest of this fiscal year. In return, state employees will be given 10 hours of flexible time off, which they may take between June 1 and Dec. 31.

Right now, neither the state Department of Public Instruction or local school districts know quite how this will play out at the local level. DPI is working on what guidance to give to districts.