On Sept. 17, University of Maine President Joan Ferrini-Mundy and Provost Gabriel Paquette sent a letter to UMaine faculty and staff detailing the $19 million budget deficit and plans to reduce it. The letter explained that Academic Affairs would be primarily responsible for handling the deficit and that workforce reductions, including layoffs, were being considered to offset operating costs. Since the announcement, there has been a flood of responses from the community, including the UMaine Student Government (UMSG) and the UMaine Graduate Workers Union (UMGWU-UAW).
Samantha Warren, UMaine’s chief external and governmental affairs officer, shed light on the budget deficit in an email to the Maine Campus.
“UMaine and its regional campus in Machias currently have more than 2,400 employees, not counting student workers,” wrote Warren. “No final decisions have been made but any workforce reductions would be carried out in a manner consistent with the expectations of the relevant collective bargaining agreement, including as pertains to notifications, severance, etc.”
Warren clarified that the contents of the letter reflected the proposed solution to the budget deficit, not the final plan.
“FY28 budget proposals from Maine’s public universities are due to the System in January 2027 and will be subject to a transparent, thorough review by the Board of Trustees, with multiple opportunities for public comment before a final vote in May,” wrote Warren.
UMGWU-UAW released a letter on Thursday in collaboration with the Associated Clerical, Office, Laboratory and Technical Staff of the Universities of Maine (ACSUM), the Associated Faculties of the University of Maine (AFUM) and the Universities of Maine Professional Staff Association (UMPSA) entitled “We Didn’t Cause the Budget Crisis.” The letter argued that the staff cuts were unnecessary and that the budget deficit was easily remedied by reducing administrative overhead and requesting more funding from the state.
“Despite claims that labor expenses drive shortfalls, labor’s share of the overall UMaine budget has fallen by nearly 10 percentage points over the last 10–15 years,” the letter states. “Adjusted for inflation, the average full-time UMaine faculty member earns roughly $10,000 less per year than a decade ago. University employees have already absorbed repeated budget reductions, including asking all colleges and other divisions to cut 7% from their budgets this fiscal year, an unstrategic move that has caused staffing shortages and increased workloads while doing more with less.”
UMSG President Cynthia Shelmerdine provided commentary in an email to the Maine Campus. She stated that UMaine has been looking to reduce operating costs for a while, and that condensing programs makes sense financially. Shelmerdine added that students who are part of affected programs should not experience any disruptions in their education, but said they should contact her and Vice President Hazel Sparks if they do.
“We personally have not had any student groups come forward and express grievances with the cuts. Because UMSG has been part of the behind-the-scenes work of understanding the university’s financial situation, cuts like this are necessary,” wrote Shelmerdine. She added that deferred maintenance costs were a significant source of the budget deficit, and that cuts to programs and staff had been in consideration for a long time.
“This was not a hasty decision either; there has been a committee with the president’s cabinet that has involved faculty and internal studies of our campus to make these budget cuts, and, to my knowledge, faculty have been informed of this for a couple of years, as I have been for over two,” wrote Shelmerdine.
Shelmerdine clarified that UMaine’s recent building projects were not related to the budget deficit, since they are funded by donations and not student tuition.
The Maine Campus also spoke with Faculty Senate President Brian McGill, who had assisted with the April 3 letter to UMaine administrators.
“It’s pretty demoralizing to think about being in a place where we’re cutting faculty and staff. I think [my] next reaction is a lot of questions about how we got here and how we’re gonna get out. I feel like there’s a pretty significant lack of information at the moment,” said McGill.
McGill said he had been informed on Sept. 16 that UMaine administrators intended to make an announcement the next day, but that he had not been told what that might entail.
“This is better than the process we had around the budget last year, where there was very little sharing of information until it was done, but from my point of view, in the context of shared governance, this needs to be a starting point. There are still a huge number of questions that I think we [the Faculty Senate] would like to have shared and answered through conversation, starting with just being convinced that this is actually necessary,” said McGill.
