Although six mandatory furlough dates have been set for faculty and staff, some at the University will be exempt from taking time off without pay.

These workers fall under two broad categories – the first being workers making less than $23,660 annually, which includes graduate assistants and student workers, and the second being those in the U.S. on an H1B visa.

The H1B visa allows a U.S. company to employ a foreign individual for up to six years, and the application process is generally less time consuming than that for a Green Card.

“There is a three-way contract [for those people] between the institution, the individual and the federal government,” John Millsaps, Board of Regents spokesman, said Friday in a telephone interview. “The program brings over people from outside the country for special jobs. It can only be done after an employer has done an [exhaustive] search and certified that no Americans are available for that particular job.”

Millsaps said this is part of the reason professors with H1B visas will not be subject to the mandatory furloughs.

“Federal law says no one can be brought over under the H1B visa and be paid less than an American worker would be,” Millsaps said.

This creates a sticky situation when it comes to furloughs. If a professor with an H1B visa is furloughed, their salary would drop lower than the contractual amount, which is against federal law.

Millsaps said the Regents could have initiated an application process to get around the contracts, but it would cost $320 in application fees per employee. The University has 270 employees under the H1B visa, which would cost $86,400 in application fees alone.

“The goal of the governor is to decrease cost,” Millsaps said. “And with those workers, clearly we were not going to be able to decrease cost, so we chose [not to furlough them].”

As for the other workers who won’t be furloughed – those making $23,660 or less annually – Millsaps said that decision was simple.

“Clearly the reason for that is obvious. It’s an ethical, moral and financial reason,” he said. “These people are right at the poverty line. It would be much more of a financial hardship for them, for not as much savings.”

But workers who make just above $23,660 won’t have to take all six furlough days. Millsaps said when those workers begin to take their days, the furloughs will have “the cumulative effect of dropping their salary below that minimum, then they will be exempt from taking further furloughs.”

The University has created a sliding scale of furlough days for this purpose. Only those making more than $24,219 annually will take all six days.

For those who don’t meet the exemption criteria, procedures state all employees, regardless of salary funding, will be furloughed. This includes University employees whose salary is partially or completely funded through grant money.

University President Michael Adams said last week in some cases furloughing these types of employees doesn’t translate into money saved for the state.

“It basically relates to a philosophical decision that we had to make,” Adams said Thursday during his budget address. “We decided the only equitable thing to do in this situation was to do it together, to do it appropriately, to do it for everyone.”

The University is also facing the possibility of taking another 4 to 8 percent cut in the budget after the governor reviews budget reduction plans next year. Adams said the estimated $40,000 to $42,000 a day saved using furloughs “doesn’t come close to solving the issue.”

Millsaps said the governor’s decision is entirely dependent on what happens with the state’s economy.

“We’ll have to wait and see how the state economy goes,” he said. “Continued declines would probably mean they’d need to make additional reductions up to the 8 percent level. But nobody knows at this stage of the game.”