PORTLAND (AP) – A hiring freeze imposed during fiscal 2007 by the University of Southern Maine amid cost-cutting pressures linked to a growing budget deficit appears to have been a freeze in name only.

The university filled 54 of 89 vacant jobs during a 10-month period while the freeze was in effect, according to the Maine Sunday Telegram, which said salaries and benefits for those hired totaled more than $2.7 million a year. Some were paid more than $60,000.

The costs were nearly double the $1.4 million in salary and benefit savings from eliminating 35 vacant jobs during the period, according to university documents reviewed by the newspaper.

University officials acknowledged that USM should have left more jobs unfilled but said they based their actions on what they knew of the budget deficit at the time. That deficit turned out to be worse than expected, totaling $3.9 million in fiscal 2006 and $3.5 million in fiscal 2007.

“At the time, we felt it was on pace,” said Richard Pattenaude, chancellor of the University of Maine System, who stepped down as USM president earlier this year. “In the hard light of today, I would have been significantly more aggressive” about eliminating jobs, he said.

USM spokesman Robert Caswell said the vacant positions that were filled between Sept. 1, 2006, and July 1, 2007, included those critical to the university’s mission. Others were either revenue-producing jobs, positions needed to protect health and safety, or jobs essential for “legal and compliance reasons.”

USM’s budget woes have been blamed in part to declining enrollment triggered by the growth of the community colleges and to higher-than-expected energy costs. University officials pointed to the hiring freeze as a key step in keeping costs down.

What began as a two-year hiring freeze has since been extended to three years, said Joseph Wood, USM’s interim president. He said the initial plan to drop 18 vacant jobs this fiscal year has been expanded to 30 jobs, to be followed by 30 more next year.

Four people have been laid off and more layoffs may be coming, Wood said. USM has 10,453 full- and part-time students, along with 1,592 full- and part-time employees, plus 869 temporary employees.

The university’s figures show that it has hired 105 people so far this calendar year, primarily to fill vacancies. That compares to 120 hires in 2006, 141 in 2005 and 158 in 2004.

Margaret Weston, who chairs the University of Maine System board of trustees, defended USM’s recent employment decisions, but promised stronger measures in the future.

While trustees take USM’s deficits “very seriously,” she said the university must consider student needs in deciding which jobs to cut.

“They took the right actions” in 2007 and the university is “beginning to see the impact of those steps,” Weston said, but she said USM will be “going deeper this year” as it makes more cuts in its ongoing quest to live within its means.

A $2.6 million shortfall is projected this year, followed by a smaller one next year, as USM moves toward a goal of balancing its books in fiscal 2010.

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Information from: Portland Press Herald, http://www.pressherald.com

AP-ES-11-18-07 1211EST

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