Loredo, who headed UVote, multicultural services, judicial affairs and GLBT Services, among other programs, joined the UMaine community as associate dean in June 1999. He previously served as director of multicultural services at the University of Houston-Clear Lake. His responsibilities will be absorbed by Dana and Senior Associate Dean of Students Kenda Scheele.

The decision to cut the position was made by Dana, in consultation with several other people who Dana declined to identify.

“We’ve cut 25 percent of the budget in the last four-plus years, and I had cut 12 positions leading up to this,” Dana said Friday afternoon. Most of the positions that have been cut so far were characterized by Dana as “front-line” positions, but Dana said he had cut those positions as much as he could afford.

“To provide excellent service to students, I cannot cut on the front lines,” Dana said. Previous cuts have affected campus recreation, campus activities and administrative support, but Dana said the cuts have not dramatically impacted students.

“Student Affairs personnel are willing to do what needs to be done to help people,” Dana said.

Dana told Loredo of the decision on Tuesday.

Loredo would like to stay in the academic arena, but was unable to comment on whether he would be able to stay at UMaine due to contractual limitations.

“My passion has always been working with students,” Loredo said.

Scheele called the cut “a horrible thing,” but said budget cuts dictated the action.

“At the end of the day, we have to make the money work,” Scheele said.

Zachary Knox, president of Wilde Stein, UMaine’s GLBT alliance, said Loredo would be “sincerely missed.” Knox said Loredo was the community’s “source of influence and support” in the administration.

Scheele said Student Affairs has suffered other personnel cuts in recent years, including losing an administrative assistant last year. The elimination of an associate dean position is the biggest cut of a single job UMaine has seen since the recession began.

Dana said the university compensates for position cuts by allocating additional jobs to other people. He said when he first joined the university, there was a vice president for student affairs, a dean of students and three associate deans. With the elimination of Loredo’s job, just Dana, as vice president and dean, and Scheele, as associate dean, remain.

“We haven’t been unfairly treated; we’ve been proportionally treated,” Dana said. He expects $200,000 of Student Affairs’ $2.9 million budget to be cut next year.

Public Safety will come under the purview of Student Affairs, effective Jan. 1. The department was previously under the direction of Vice President for Administration and Finance Janet Waldron, according to Dana.

Loredo’s salary and benefits totaled just under $101,000 last year, according to MaineOpenGov.org.

In addition, 77 vacant positions were eliminated, for a total of 140 positions affected. The salary and benefits savings associated with eliminating or reducing these positions totals $5.8 million.

UMaine reduced its operating costs further by reducing travel, supplies, maintenance, equipment and related expenses by $1.7 million, according to the release. An additional $1.3 million will be eliminated through conservation at the administrative level.

All totaled, UMaine reduced its expenditures for the next fiscal year by $8.8 million.

In an interview, UMaine President Robert Kennedy said “hundreds of people were involved in making the decisions”. According to Kennedy, every department and program head was involved in the process. “Those decisions were made in the colleges and in the other service units,” said Kennedy. “The units tried to do it strategically to make as little impact, as negative impact on our programs as possible.

According to Kennedy, 43 faculty positions will be left open to accommodate the cut. In order to cover the gap in the number of faculty some colleges will hire adjunct professors to teach, whereas full-time faculty get money for research, class sizes may increase and in some cases classes may be scheduled less often.

In addition, the university has been able to use private money to hire for positions previously funded by public funds, according to Kennedy.

Fifteen of the layoffs come from UMaine’s salaried staff, including 10 positions at the Cutler Health Center. Four coaches were eliminated with UMaine’s volleyball and men’s soccer programs, and one faculty member who primarily worked with Cooperative Extension. The remaining 12 layoffs were hourly workers, including eight at Cutler Health Center. The Cutler Health Center layoffs came during the transition from a university-operated center to a center owned and operated by Eastern Maine Medical Center. Vice President for Administration and Finance Janet Waldron estimates six employees were hired back by EMMC after the transition.

Most of the reduced hours resulted in converting positions from 12-month positions to 10-month positions.