Illinois’ unbalanced budget has claimed another victim.

University of Illinois interim president Stanley Ikenberry announced Wednesday that faculty and administrators will be required to take up to 10 unpaid furlough days before the middle of June.

A hiring freeze was also announced as part of the effort to cut down operating costs.

The University of Illinois is still waiting to receive a backlog of $436 million from the state. The furloughs and hiring freeze is expected to generate about $82 million in savings.

“At some point, we will be unable to meet payroll and complete the academic year unless there are significant payments from the state as promised,” Ikenberry said in an e-mail to faculty and all other university professionals in the state. “We have struggled this year to avoid furloughs for faculty and staff, but that is simply no longer possible. Personnel expenses represent the majority of our budget.”

Chancellors, deans and other administrators, including Ikenberry, will be taking 10 furlough days.

Faculty and academic staff will be required to take four furlough days.

Other universities in the state are also still waiting to receive almost all their funding as the state scrambles to borrow money to pay its bills.

implement furloughs or layoffs. However, in order to meet the financial obligations of the current fiscal year, Eastern is taking actions to save money, including freezing hiring and equipment purchases and postponing non-safety-related maintenance and travel reimbursement. These actions were announced Thursday in an e-mail by President Bill Perry.

Richard Wandling, a political science professor, said the root of the problem is the way Illinois handles the budget.

“Our budgets are done on a year-to-year basis, and the strategy seems to be to cobble something together to limp from fiscal year to fiscal year,” Wandling said. “Illinois is one of the wealthiest states in the nation. We’ve been squandering our wealth away.”

Charles Delman, a mathematics professor, believes raising taxes is the only way out of the nearly $9 billion hole the state has dug itself into.

“The only fair and viable solution to this problem is the state needs to sign into legislation a progressive taxation policy,” Delman said. “We have had a growing inequality over the last few decades and the wealthy are not paying their share, and that is why the state doesn’t have funding.”

Difficult decisions must be made, Wandling said.

“The income tax is where the problem lies,” he said. “We have a definite deficit with respect to political responsibility in Springfield. The legislature and governor need to sit down and act like responsible adults.”

Until funding for the University of Illinois comes through, its students will be feeling the effects.

“On a furlough day, professors are legally required to not work, which could affect grading and lesson planning,” Delman said. “Clearly this will affect students negatively.”

Faculty members at the University of Illinois are non-union, which allows the furloughs to be implemented without prior notice and negotiation. Eastern’s faculty belongs to the University Professionals of Illinois union; any furloughs or layoffs must be negotiated before being put into place.

President Perry said furloughs would be a last resort because of the damage they cause.

“There is an individual impact and an institutional impact,” Perry said. “I hope we don’t get to the stage of having to institute furloughs or layoffs; those are our last resorts.”

In the meantime, lobbying for higher education funding is important.

“The people of Illinois need to mobilize and bring a clear message to Springfield that we value higher education and that it needs state funding,” Delman said.

Sarah Ruholl can be reached at 581-7942 or [email protected].