PITTSBURGH (TNS) — Penn State is offering some of its commonwealth campus employees the option to voluntarily leave the university for lump-sum payments as those campuses continue to grapple with financial difficulties.
Eligible full-time faculty, staff and administrators must decide by May 31 if they wish to retire or pursue other jobs in exchange for a payment equal to a year of their base salary.
The voluntary separation incentive program comes as the university faces a mounting deficit that school leaders hope to balance by 2025.
The 20 commonwealth campuses, many of which face enrollment and financial challenges, are slated to bear the brunt of anticipated cuts. In January, Penn State announced it intends to ax $54 million in funding — or 14% — from those campuses in 2026.
The incentive program aims to serve as an “investment in people who have been committed to the university,” Margo DelliCarpini, Penn State’s vice president for commonwealth campuses and executive chancellor, told the Post-Gazette in a Wednesday interview.
“We know that we are not going to reach a budget reduction and a balanced budget without affecting staffing levels,” DelliCarpini said. “This is an opportunity to allow people to make decisions now while we’re still working on a future … that’s aligned with our market realities and the current realities of higher education.”
The university does not have a target number of employees that it hopes will voluntarily leave, DelliCarpini said.
Internal analysis has shown that the incentive program will have a positive budgetary effect for the school. It will also help university leaders determine allocations and cuts at individual campuses, DelliCarpini said.
Although Penn State’s Board of Trustees will vote on the branch campuses’ overall allocation in July, school leaders don’t anticipate campus-specific allocation decisions until the fall.
“[The incentive program] is one of the big pieces that will help us develop those allocations,” DelliCarpini said.
It’s still unknown whether layoffs or campus closures could eventually hit the branch campuses. DelliCarpini said Wednesday that she doesn’t know if layoffs are a possibility at the campuses.
“We don’t know how many people will subscribe to this incentive package,” she said. “It doesn’t preclude that.”
And DelliCarpini said it’s “premature” to predict whether any of the branch campuses are at risk of closure.
“It’s obviously premature to forecast [campus closures] until we spend more time engaging with communities and leadership teams to define what that sustainable future for our commonwealth campuses is,” she said. “We know the importance of each of our campuses to their communities.”
To mitigate the educational impacts of faculty and staff departures at the branch campuses, Penn State has contingency plans in place, DelliCarpini said. Once school leaders know who is voluntarily leaving, they plan to “leverage the resources of the university to ensure that there are no interruptions of services,” she explained.
The incentive program is one of numerous measures that Penn State has undertaken to reduce its deficit and bolster its commonwealth campuses. Other measures at the campuses have included strategic enrollment management, retention efforts, recruitment of adult learners and transfer students, and community engagement.
As of now, the university does not intend to implement an incentive program at the University Park campus, law schools or the College of Medicine.
Looming cuts at the branch campuses have sparked frustration and controversy in the Penn State community and statewide. In February, professors rallied at the Fayette and New Kensington campuses in response to potential cuts.
And an open letter to Gov. Josh Shapiro and Pennsylvania legislators urged lawmakers to intervene before proposed cuts can come to fruition. That letter amassed more than 800 signatures.
In southwestern Pennsylvania, branch campus locations include those at Beaver, Fayette, Greater Allegheny, New Kensington and Shenango.
