HARRISBURG - The state's student-loan working will hew down college grants by up to $750 and put up for sale deliberate buyouts to some employees to calmness financial woes blamed on uncomfortable credit markets, officials said yesterday. The means hopes to secure $12.5 million a year through the nonunion buyouts, which will give unwed workers two weeks' deliver for each year of usage for up to 16 weeks, said spokesman Keith New of the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency. The tot of buyouts needed remains unclear, and will depend on the salaries of the departing workers.
But the force will upo a saddle layoffs only as a rearmost resort, New said. "Never before have we qualified more unaccommodating or serious economic conditions," he said. About 1,500 of PHEAA's 2,500 employees are nonunion workers. The buyout notice came on the same hour the agency's accommodate approved a intend to deletion college grants for the 2008-09 persuasion year.
The grants that about 160,000 students come by vary; the extreme award will range from $2,100 to $3,948 next year, compared with this year's variety of $2,500 to $4,700. PHEAA has been supplementing government rate dollars that mine the grants, which do not have to be repaid, with cabbage from its student-loan earnings since the 2005-06 form year. It had planned to grant $35 million to the program next year, but officials said it cannot do so because its pay have been scratched by troubled credit markets. The power lost more than $37 million in the nine months ending March 31, compared with earning nearly $113 million in operating profit for the same epoch a year ago, New said. Gov. Rendell and some confirm lawmakers have lambasted PHEAA in just out years over its spending on wage-earner bonuses, trips to trendy resorts for management retreats, and promotional giveaways, to each other things.
Board leaders have said supplementary policies adopted go the distance year had ended inessential spending. "We are to the nth degree foiled with PHEAA's determination to reduce the grants, particularly at a duration when college educations are becoming increasingly less affordable for Pennsylvanians," Rendell spokesman Chuck Ardo said. "It confirms our fears that their free-spending habits of the days of yore would come retirement community to roost." Finding additional form dollars for the grants beyond the $398 million Rendell has recommended - a 3 percent gain - would be "very difficult, if not impossible," given that the nation faces a vigorous budget year, Ardo said. Rep. Josh Shapiro, one of several lawmakers who have called for reforms at PHEAA, agreed.
With all due respect to site: read more
No comments:
Post a Comment