MARYLAND (WBFF) — As the University of Maryland, College Park braces for a 10% reduction in state funding, a new hiring freeze and plans to eliminate at least 150 positions are drawing scrutiny over how taxpayer dollars are being spent — particularly as top athletics coaches and university leadership earn salaries in the millions.
The university has called for a hiring freeze and the elimination of at least 150 positions as it prepares for the funding cut. UMD is also limiting travel and pausing spending on many long-term projects.
The move is already being felt in day-to-day operations, according to Todd Holden, who leads the AFSCME union representing 4,000 university employees in College Park.
“In certain buildings right now, they’re only vacuuming the offices twice a month because of attrition,” Holden said.
ALSO READ | Police seek to identify suspect in indecent exposure cases at McKeldin Library
He said the union is fighting to ensure the university honors a promised 2.5% pay raise for workers.
“To say in order to solve this crisis…the workers are the ones to sacrifice…is really terrible,” Holden said.
He also defended the role of lower-paid employees on campus.
The problem is not the workers supporting and cleaning the campus, they believe in higher education and work very hard and at the end of the day they want to pay their bills and put gas in their tank,” Holden said.
At the same time, some of the highest-paid employees on the state’s payroll are at the university, including athletics staff and top administrators. The university pays head football coach Michael Locksley a salary of $6.1 million. Men’s basketball head coach Brent “Buzz” Williams earns $3.4 million. Women’s basketball head coach Brenda Frese earns $2.1 million. University Chancellor Jay Perman takes home $1.4 million.
The university is also paying former men’s basketball head coach Mark Turgeon, who no longer works in Maryland, $1.2 million. The school is still paying Turgeon’s $5 million buyout when he was replaced five years ago.
Taxpayer advocate David Williams criticized the spending priorities as the university moves to cut jobs.
“It doesn’t make sense when you are paying millions to coaches who aren’t adding to the academic nature of the university,” Williams said.
In a letter to lawmakers last month, Perman wrote:
Given successive years of budget reductions, our operations have grown ever leaner, and finding opportunities for cost savings in an already-austere environment becomes more challenging.”
Williams said he finds that difficult to digest.
“When you have excessive salaries for a lot of people it shows you their priorities may not be academics especially when the biggest salaries are going to coaches and sports,” he said.
The university has not indicated which jobs are at stake, but Holden said workers are preparing to push back if the cuts fall on the employees his union represents.
“If they decide they’re going after working people and the people we represent, we’re going to fight like hell,” Holden said.
Local Story
