WENATCHEE — Wenatchee Valley College is asking its faculty union to give up two paid days to help balance the budget for next school year. The vote is Wednesday.

The college is preparing to lose $400,000 to $900,000 in state funding next year. A faculty furlough would save $56,000.

The request is part of a campus-wide furlough the college is considering for all full-time employees. Unlike other staff, tenured faculty are protected by a union contract that requires a vote of its members before the president can impose a furlough.

The request, sent to faculty earlier this week, limits the furlough to non-teaching days reserved for training, administrative meetings or reports.

Even if faculty accepts, the college may not have to resort to furloughs, said President Jim Richardson. He considers furloughs “a last resort,” second only to layoffs, he said.

“It’s a tool for us,” Richardson said. “We have to know if we can use it as we plan budget for next year. We would rather not have furlough days. We know it’s tough on people.”

Richardson already ordered furloughs this year of top administrators “to send a message that we’re willing to do this too,” he said in a phone interview Thursday.

Meanwhile, several faculty members said they are wary of the plan.

“I think it’s premature for them to ask,” said math professor Angela Russell. The state Legislature hasn’t decided on a final budget yet for next year. Russell said she wants to know what’s at stake before she commits to furloughs.

A few months ago, she asked the college’s board of directors to hire back some of the 11 tenured faculty it lost last year. Seven took buyouts, one retired and three left for other reasons. That’s 14 percent of full-time faculty gone. At the time, the college was hiring new staff to replace custodians and cashiers who left this school year.

Mike Lavinder, another math faculty, said he planned to vote yes on Wednesday. He said he had mixed feelings about college spending in recent years, particularly with the new student dorm building, but “if we don’t vote for the furloughs, the students will get hurt because the cut has to be made somewhere.”

The new student dorm lost nearly $200,000 this year, which was more than administrators planned for. A committee will present a plan to make up for that loss at the college board of trustees meeting on Wednesday.

Faculty union president Sharon Wiest said she can’t predict how the 71 faculty will vote.

In the last two weeks, the union negotiating team called every professor for their opinions about a possible furlough. She said they fell into three camps:

• Some faculty said they would take furloughs to save jobs and classes as long as the furloughs are fair, Wiest said. Faculty is paid for 175 days, compared to 261 days for a year-round employee, which means furlough days cost faculty more than other staff.

• Some faculty members said they would vote no for lack of information. They want to see how their furlough fits in the overall budget-cutting plan before they agree to give up pay.

• Some will refuse the furlough because they believe administrators mismanaged the budget, and the faculty shouldn’t have to pay for their mistakes.

“I think all of the faculty are sensitive to the financial situation of the state,” Weist said. “But many think that local decisions exacerbated that, so without a plan on how to move forward, a number of faculty feel uncomfortable voting for a furlough.”

Rachel Schleif: 664-7139

schleif@wenatcheeworld.com