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Another round of cost cutting is under way at Antioch College, with faculty and staff members who earn more than $40,000 per year being required to take mandatory furloughs and a de facto hiring freeze being put in place.
Affected faculty and staff at the small college in Yellow Springs, Ohio, will need to take 10 days of unpaid leave before June 30, according to The Yellow Springs News. That’s the equivalent of an 11 percent pay cut over the next several months, or 3.8 percent of their annual salaries. No jobs are being eliminated.
Antioch has 118 staff members and 31 faculty members, not including adjuncts. The furlough requirement effectively covers all full-time faculty members but less than half of nonfaculty staff members. Adjuncts will not have to take furloughs.
The cuts will not completely eliminate a shortfall in the current budget, Antioch president Tom Manley told The Yellow Springs News. He did not share the size of the college’s current deficit, but it closed its last fiscal year with a $1.73 million gap in a budget of $17.6 million.
Last year’s deficit shrank from $7 million the year before as the college in 2016 put cuts in place that included the elimination of five positions and decreased salaries for 23 administrators.
Antioch enrolls just 133 students after struggling with admissions in the fall. The college, which is attempting to transition from a free model to one where students pay, netted $1.7 million in tuition and fee revenue last year. It relies on gifts for much of its revenue.
Antioch College was closed by Antioch University in 2008, but a group led by alumni purchased the rights to the liberal arts campus and its endowment, reopening the institution in 2011. The college offered full-tuition scholarships for several years after reopening.
Now, it is also looking for savings from its contracts and consultants. The college is searching for attrition opportunities, holding vacant positions open and not filling voluntary leaves and retirements -- implementing a de facto hiring freeze.
At the same time, Antioch leaders are attempting to grow revenue and diversify their sources of income. They will try to find the right balance between fiscal responsibility and reinvention, Manley told The Yellow Springs News.
