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The Daily Tar Heel

Give them a break: Stop forcing UNC employees to shoulder so much of the burden from budget cuts

The University and the state have asked our employees to sacrifice too much.

 There’s been a mandatory two-hour workday cut on Oct. 22 for a football game, a 0.5 percent reduction in salary, a 10-hour furlough and now a decrease in employee course waivers from three classes to eight credit hours.

The budget crisis requires sacrifices from everybody, but too much is being asked of a group that has little say in the budget decisions of Gov. Bev Perdue.

They seem to be the first group hung out to dry when it comes time to make more cuts.

University officials recently slashed course waivers — which allow employees to take classes for free — to eight course credits a year from the original three classes.

The estimated savings is $700,000. But University officials haven’t made clear where this $700,000 figure comes from.

Employees can only take classes in sections that aren’t full. Thus, the course waivers are not displacing tuition-paying students, so it seems that no revenue is actually being lost by allowing employees to take classes.

Of course, this is only the latest in a string of cuts at the expense of University employees.

In April, Perdue issued an executive order effectively requiring state employees to take 10 hours of unpaid leave.

These workers are not in the private sector. They cannot petition their supervisor or have their union write a letter to the CEO.

Their only recourse is a direct appeal to the state legislature, which seemingly has much bigger things to concern itself with than the plight of UNC employees.

Granted, cuts are necessary when budgets are in the red. But officials should focus on making cuts that incur the least harm on the smallest number of people.

Slashing course waivers to save a supposed $700,000 after cutting salaries and demanding furloughs is simply adding insult to injury.

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