Kansas State University

Administrative Furlough Plans - FY21

College of Agriculture and Cooperative Extension

Cost Savings Target for the Administrative Furlough Plan

With salary and benefits, the College of Agriculture and our Extension units plan on generating a little over $3M from an administrative furlough.

Impact to Mission and/or Operations

The mission of the College of Agriculture and K-State Research and Extension is central to fulfilling the land-grand mission of Kansas State University. So, our mission will not change with the administrative furlough, although our ability to deliver the full breadth of our mission in a timely fashion will be negatively impacted. Our reach is statewide, so we have relied heavily on unit heads and supervisors, who are closest to the delivery of programs, to identify employees who must be exempt from the furlough in order to ensure minimum disruption to delivery of our mission-critical programs while also generating the cash savings needed to meet the anticipated budget reduction. Because faculty and staff in all academic departments and Extension units will be unable to work for up to a full month, their overall productivity obviously will be reduced. Yet, we have designed our plan to avoid an array of unacceptable outcomes. For example, we've been careful to attempt to avoid compromise of animal welfare for livestock that are used in our teaching, research and Extension missions. Similarly, we have designed our furlough to minimize the likelihood of loss of rare and/or otherwise valuable plant germplasm or microbial specimens or gaps in replication of long-term research projects. We have attempted to minimize disruption to timely submission of grant proposals. On the other hand, at the service unit level, we have not exempted University Printing, so there is potential for less timely delivery of requested printed materials.

Utilization of Salary Tiers

The table below summarizes our proposed use of salary tiers and the distribution of FTE within those tiers.

Effective Dates

Proposed Administrative Furlough Begin Date: 8/9/2020
Proposed Administrative Furlough End Date: 6/12/2021

Furlough Deployment

Department heads will work with the supervisors in their department to determine the best implementation for their units. Employees will be allowed to determine how they would like to take their furlough days in consultation with and approval by their supervisor so that it does not interfere with the delivery of our teaching, research, or Extension missions. Full week increments will be strongly encouraged to avoid any overtime issues.

Employees Exempted from Administrative Furlough

Employees under the following classifications will not be furloughed:

• employees on H1-B and E-3 visa status should not be furloughed
• temporary employees,
• graduate students,
• student employees,
• employees on sabbatical leave

In addition to the five classifications listed above, the following reasons were also used to exclude employees from the furlough:

• Employees who received a notice of non-reappointment
• Employees who are on phased retirement in FY 21.
• Employees who are 100% grant funded or 100% funded with Foundation funds
• Adjunct faculty who do not receive any salary.
• Employees who will not be employed after 8/9/2020.
• One employee who is retiring in October.
• All summer appointments. The HRIS query provided all employee records, including their summer appointments. These were excluded from the furlough considerations since they will end prior to 8/9/2020.
• All of the Kansas Farm Management Association Agricultural Economists. We will be lowering the KSU contribution (share) of their salaries by 10% in lieu of furloughing thee employees.
• Four employees who work with the Kansas Forest Service Fire Suppression program because their duties require them to be available to for firefighting.
• Animal technician employees at our Western Agricultural Research Center who have responsibility for care of beef cattle.
• An Insect Zoo employee with responsibility for supervising animal care at the zoo, which includes several exotic animals with USDA APHIS permits.
• An employee required to be available on call for computer malfunctions and emergencies for three departments.
• Dean/Director, who has taken a 10% voluntary salary reduction.
• Employees within Animal Sciences and Kansas Forest Service who will take only 50% of the furlough for their specific salary tier. This was applied consistently for all employees involved and was done in order to lessen the negative impact on teaching, research, extension and service/revenue generating activities involving animal and plant care.