More than three thousand current and former SIU Carbondale employees will be getting paid for furlough days taken in FY'11.
The SIU Board of Trustees Thursday approved paying employees for the time. Some 14-hundred faculty and staff are covered under an Illinois Education Labor Relations Board ruling, but Board of Trustees Chair Randal Thomas says it was important to make all the employees whole. Thomas says there were more than 2,000 non represented employees on the campus that also were forced to take the unpaid days off and trustees felt it was important to "make it equal and make that right."
In August, the state education labor relations board ruled that SIUC acted illegally during the 2011 contract dispute that resulted in faculty and staff having to take four furlough days.
SIU President Randy Dunn says the four-million dollars for the payback will come from a patchwork of state and local funds. Notices will be going out to eligible employees soon. Dunn hopes to have the furlough days re-paid by the end of the semester.
In other board action Thursday, Trustees got an update on the search for a new Chancellor for the Carbondale campus. The search is on track. The committee in charge of the search has identified a pool of 25-candidates and will soon begin interviewing semi-finalists. SIU President and acting Chancellor Randy Dunn says he doesn't think the state budget situation has hindered the process. Dunn says they have a good pool of candidates. The search committee will begin conducting interviews by Skype in a couple of weeks and then 2 or 3 finalists will be brought to campus.The search is expected to be completed by the end of the academic year.
Former acting chancellor Paul Sarvela died unexpectedly in November after having been appointed to the post last summer.
