Due to the economic downturn brought upon by COVID-19, The University of Wyoming (UW) has instituted hiring restrictions.
“It is not accurate to call it a hiring freeze, it is more likely called hiring restrictions,” said Chad Baldwin, the Associate Vice President for Marketing and Communications at UW.“Hiring (at UW) must be approved by President Theobald.”
These hiring restrictions have come about in response to Governor Mark Gordon’s statement that businesses should find ways to reduce their current budget spending. The budget cuts will extend onto the upcoming two-year budget cycle, according to the release obtained by the Casper Star-Tribune.
“This is a difficult situation without any easy solutions,” said Baldwin.
Multiple institutions throughout the United States have announced hiring restrictions and freezes to hold against budget cuts. Other institutions are instituting freezes to their employees’ salaries. That is not the only area where cuts are being made, according to The Washington Post over 250 thousand pre-college level teachers could be laid off because of the economic crisis.
Some institutions are expecting as much as a 25% decrease in budgetary funds going into next year, according to The Washington Post.
“Personnel salaries are the biggest chunk of the university’s funding,” said Baldwin. Because it is too early to know what UW would do in response, Theobald made the decision to institute these hiring restrictions.
Federal funding through the CARES Act, the University of Wyoming’s financial reserves, or an increase in tuition is ways UW could get through this, according to Baldwin. Although increasing tuition for families who already have suffered from COVID-19 would not be ideal.
“It’s (COVID-19) creating all kinds of problems for UW the longer it goes on,” said Baldwin. The hope is that in the fall things will be mostly back to normal, but not all the way as UW still has to provide a way for students to maintain their health.
Although money continues to be raised for the Students Emergency Fund to help students during this challenging time, even though these funds are limited to $1,000 per student to pay bills, the current amount will unfortunately not support every student at UW.
