Update Transitieplan, nummer 2 (16 december 2024) |
Dear colleague,
On Friday 13 December, the Faculty Council (FR) approved the 2025 budget supplement. In September 2024, the FR already approved the draft 2025 budget. The budget supplement addresses the short-term measures we are taking to structurally improve our financial situation.
As announced in the Transition Plan, the 2025 budget includes significant austerity measures. These cuts are painful, so we understand that there are many questions about them and that you are concerned.
In this mail, we would like to inform you about the impact of short-term austerity measures for the period 2025-2027. The measures are necessary to ultimately achieve a sustainable and financially healthy faculty.
Kind regards,
The Faculty Board |
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Adjusted budget 2025
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The supplementary budget incorporates the austerity measures for 2025 with a look ahead to 2026 and 2027.
The ultimate goal is to make our broad and high-quality palette of disciplines sustainable. To do so, we must make changes in our education in particular and work towards a situation in which our education is no more expensive than what we receive from the government funding of the university. This is not the case now and this has to change. Because the anticipated changes to the undergraduate portfolio will only have a sufficient financial impact in three to five years' time, we will have to take several short-term measures to reduce deficits. The measures that will take effect at least as of 2025 are a vacancy freeze, limiting teaching compensation in research and ending the strawman period for permanent staff. Other measures mentioned still need further elaboration and will take effect at a later date. The measures will ultimately bring us to losses that the Executive Board considers acceptable for the next three years:
- 2025: a deficit of over 4 million (without short-term measures: 7 million)
- 2026: a deficit of over 2 million (without short-term measures: 6.4 million)
- 2027: a deficit of around 2 million (without the short-term measures: 9.3 million)
Fewer people
These are difficult times, especially for colleagues on temporary contracts, and for colleagues in their groups who see vacancies not being filled. We realise that the effects of the austerity measures are painful. The austerity measures mean a decrease from about 870 FTE now to 788 FTE in 2027 across the faculty: a decrease of 32 FTE in 2025, 15 FTE in 2026 and 38 FTE in 2027.
That reduction will be phased, partly through natural attrition and the expiry of temporary contracts. Before 2025, there are no forced redundancies yet, due to natural attrition (retirement, colleagues finding jobs elsewhere) and the expiry of temporary contracts. But we cannot rule out reorganisation in due course. We want to clarify this as soon as possible. We now expect clarity on this after the summer of 2025.
The Council meeting
Last Friday, we had extensive discussions with the FR on the addendum. The FR had many questions about the addendum and the details of the measures and we discussed them all. We appreciate the FR's critical eye and their desire to be closely involved in the process we will go through in the coming years. We have promised that regular governance will be followed in all cases and that we will ensure that the employee participation in the broad sense of the word will have the opportunity to follow the process in every possible way and can give solicited and unsolicited advice on it.
After the Heads of Department last week indicated their support for the plans we explained in the previous mail to all, we are very happy that the FR has now agreed to the budget addendum. This means we can start shrugging our shoulders together. In doing so, we would like to conclude by saying that we recognise ourselves in the explanation of vote given by the chair of the Staff Section during the council meeting (and endorsed by the chair of the Student Section): it is about people, not FTE. That prospect also weighs heavily on us, and we vouch for the care and clarity of this process.
Want to know more about finances?
We are organising two information meetings on faculty finances. These are on Thursday 16 January (11.00-12.30 hrs) and Thursday 23 January (9.30-11.00 hrs). You can use this form to register for one of the meetings. |
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Next update in January 2025
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In the next update, we will elaborate on the process around the new undergraduate portfolio, and the process around the elaboration of the short-term measures.
Agenda
- Thursday 16 January (11.00-12.30 hrs) - finance information sessions (Dutch): register.
- Thursday 23 January (9.30-11.00 hrs) - finance information sessions (English): register.
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