With deadline nearing, 562 apply for UI early retirement

Nearly 600 University of Iowa employees have applied for an early retirement incentive package offered as part of budget cuts.

The deadline for UI faculty and staff to apply for the incentive is midnight Wednesday. Of the 562 applications received as of Monday afternoon, about 60 percent are faculty or staff from UI Health Care, which includes University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics and the Carver College of Medicine.

Not everyone who applies will be approved, UI officials have said, since the point of the program is to save money by not filling the positions. It likely will be mid-November to early December before the official tally on approved early retirements is known, Tom Moore, UI interim spokesman, said.

The hope is that enough jobs will be cut through retirements and attrition that layoffs can be avoided. UI President Sally Mason has said the university must trim several hundred jobs due to state budget cuts.

Possible layoffs “hinge on the outcome of that program, and we still don't know the exact picture,” Moore said Monday.

Similar early retirement incentive programs at Iowa State University and the University of Northern Iowa also drew hundreds of takers. ISU approved about 210 early retirements, saving more than $13 million in salary and benefits, while UNI approved about 120, saving about $4 million.

The state trimmed funding to regent institutions $86 million this fiscal year, but $80 million of that hole was covered by one-time federal stimulus money.