We know how many furlough days we are getting, but we do not know the format.

The UC Office of the President left this up to the individual campuses, and UC Davis for one is still working out the details.

One option under consideration is to shut the campus down on specified days — in other words, declaring these as furlough days for as many employees as possible. Faculty and nonrepresented staff would be included, whereas participation by represented staff would be dependent on the collective bargaining process.

Administrators are still weighing suggested days for campus closures — for example, would they be on teaching days or nonteaching days?

The Academic Senate surveyed its members on this question, and an overwhelming majority of respondents favored what the senate dubbed Option 1: the scheduling of six to nine furlough days on what would normally be teaching days.

This was the preferred option of 349 faculty members, or nearly 82 percent of the 426 respondents.

The other 18 percent favored Option 2: scheduling all furlough days on intersession days, when no formal instruction is scheduled.

The senate, not the UC Davis administration, formulated the two options.

Senate Chair Robert Powell, in a letter that accompanied the survey, said: “In suggesting Option 1, the majority of the Executive Council believes that the campus has reached a point that state funding reductions can no longer be simply absorbed without any consequences.”

If UC Davis decides to go with campuswide closures, the administration also would need to decide how many closures there would be. If the number of such days were less than your total number of furlough days, you would take the remaining days under a system to be worked out at your unit level.

Even after taking into account the salary savings from furloughs, the campus still needs to come up with an estimated $33.5 million in budget savings for 2009-10.

This is out of a total shortfall for the year estimated at nearly $114 million. The campus has already dealt with $80.5 million (with furloughs, student fee increases, and cuts in academic and administrative units).

Administrators say the challenge in dealing with the remaining $33.5 million will require many innovative strategies, including realignment, consolidation and closure of programs and services, both academic and administrative.

Some of the answers may come from a long-term budget planning process that so far has yielded reports from five subcommittees: administration, capital budget and space planning, instruction and research, self-supporting activities, and student services.

The provost originally charged the subcommittees with working toward budget savings for 2010-11. But now, with the campus still short for 2009-10, the provost is examining the reports to see what budget-saving actions can be implemented early.

The rest of the shortfall

Here is how the campus is dealing with the other $80.5 million of the estimated shortfall for 2009-10:

• $20.5 million in cuts to academic and administrative units.

• $5 million in savings from a slowdown in faculty hiring.

• $17 million in added revenue from the systemwide student fee increase, and additional student fee revenue from overenrollment.

• $2.5 million in added revenue from an increase in nonresident tuition, plus additional nonresident enrollment.

• $6 million in savings from canceling or deferring centrally funded activities and projects.

• $7.5 million in savings from debt restructuring for general campus projects.

• $22 million in savings from employee furloughs.

The systemwide furlough plan takes effect Sept. 1, by order of the Board of Regents. Most employees have been ordered to take 11 to 26 days without pay, through Aug. 31, 2010; this translates into salary reductions of 4 percent to 10 percent. The more money you make, the more furlough days you must take.

The regents exempted most student employees, such as graduate students, as well as personnel whose funding comes entirely from contracts and grants, and medical center employees.

The UC Office of the President is negotiating with unions over furlough implementation for represented employees.

BUDGET UPDATE: School and college impacts, VSP, and HR programs and services