Emergency funds approved last week by Illinois lawmakers after public colleges had gone almost the whole academic year without state money did not avert layoffs at Chicago State University, which let go more than 300 employees on Friday, the Chicago Tribune reported. That number represents one-third of the university’s staff. No faculty positions were affected — in this round of cuts, Chicago State’s president, Thomas J. Calhoun Jr., told the Tribune.
Illinois’s state-budget impasse has hit Chicago State, a predominantly African-American institution, especially hard, as more than 30 percent of its budget came from state funding, the highest share of any public college there. The university declared financial exigency in February and announced that it wouldend its semester early so that students could finish the academic year before the money ran out. "We have enough cash to make payroll through April 30, and then the operating dollars are no longer sufficient," a university spokesman told the Tribune in March.
Read more at The Chronicle of Higher Education: http://chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/chicago-state-u-lays-off-one-third-of-staff/110954