UC Davis employees have been asked to help ease the system's budget crunch by voluntarily reducing their work hours.

And they're doing it.

As of July 2, 65 employees from various campus units have been approved for the Staff and Academic Reduction in Time (START) program offered throughout the UC system, said Dennis Shimek, senior associate vice chancellor for Human Resources.

"The START program is intended as a tool to help manage our financial situation," Shimek said. "The program primarily deals with the current-year situation. To the extent that START can help departments, we are achieving our goal."

At UC Davis, employees are already starting to take their time reductions. Employees can apply to join START anytime through the end of the program in July 2005. The minimum time reduction is 10 percent of monthly hours worked and the maximum is 50 percent.

The UC system adopted the fiscal belt-tightening measure in March due to state funding shortfalls. The first deadline of June 15 has resulted in an initial wave of participants.

V.Ana Balogh, an administrative assistant in the Department of Land, Air and Water Resources, will be taking a 10 percent reduction in hours worked for the next 12 months. She plans to work nine-hour days Monday through Thursday so she can take every Friday off. With two teen-aged children -- one of them is heading to college in Monterey this fall -- Balogh plans to make good use of the free time.

"This will allow me to be at home more with them," Balogh said.

Many START participants so far are non-management staff, though a few academic appointees and managers have enrolled as well, according to Linda Durst, a payroll and personnel project manager in Application Development and Data Administration.

Moreover, there seems to be wide interest. "Folks are signing up for the START program at a rapid rate," Durst said.

Durst said the average amount of time reduction taken by UC Davis employees thus far is around 23 percent.

Many of the approved START programs will last for the maximum of about a year, Durst said, though some have been accepted for as little as a month or two. Not all units are required to offer it -- for example, the UC Davis Medical Center and School of Medicine are not involved. However, Durst described current participation in START as "fairly representative across campus."

Those taking reductions will continue to accrue credits in the UC Retirement Plan and vacation and sick leave at the rate they earned them before joining START.

Shimek noted that START gives participants the time to pursue educational, avocational or family-oriented interests while also being an alternative to involuntary reductions in time or pay. For the university, the program offers short-term salary savings while minimizing lay-offs.

Shimek said it's critical to be aware of the consequences of shifting work loads to employees who are at their full-time appointment levels. "START will not work in all cases because of business needs, staffing levels or requirements of the budget situation," he said.

START is intended to be a two-way commitment between the employee and the department for the benefit of both. However, when there is a business need, a department head may end the program with 30 days advance notice.

Shimek noted that a department head's decision to not offer START is not subject to review under personnel policies or collective bargaining agreements. But in a department that does offer the program to all employees, a management decision denying an individual request may be subject to review.

With approval, staff can have more than one START contract through 2005. However, they must wait at least 12 months after the beginning date of their start contract before signing up for the program a second time.

START employees should have the same reduction in time and pay in each pay period of their contract. However, with their department head's approval, their work schedules within a pay period may be flexible from week to week as long as the total time reduced during the pay period is the same as the percentage time reflected in the contract.

In the early 1990s, the university also enacted time reduction programs -- TRIP I and TRIP II -- in the midst of a budget crisis, saving the campus more than $20 million.

In February, the campus announced other new guidelines designed to protect staff from the budget situation, including internal recruitment for all staff positions and retraining or training for employees who have been laid off and wish to re-enter the campus work force. For more information about START, see http://www.hr.ucdavis.edu/Policy/Start.