SOU’s SEIU president had asked SOU administration, including President Bailey, to take a 50% pay cut prior to trustees approval of Bailey’s 20% cut 

By Holly Dillemuth, Ashland.news

Southern Oregon University President Rick Bailey’s 20% pay cut approved by SOU’s Board of Trustees on Wednesday follows on the heels of a 50% pay cut request for all SOU administrators by Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 503 President Sage TeBeest on behalf of SOU’s classified union membership to “preserve as many positions as possible” amid $6 million in looming cuts to the university.

In a letter dated June 25, TeBeest offered a challenge to SOU administrators, including Bailey, on behalf of 178 classified union members to help bear the financial burden felt by employees on campus. In return, TeBeest said she would voluntarily match his reduction in pay. 

The university faces a structural deficit due to declining enrollment and reduced state and federal funding, prompting $6 million in cuts to the $66 million budget. Bailey will detail a plan on how to reduce the budget by 10% in a campus conversation with employees Friday morning.

TeBeest said in the letter to trustees and university leadership that SEIU has done its part to fundraise millions in funding through lobbying efforts and public advocacy, stating: “We have continued to show up for this university, and we continue to do so. But partnership must be equal.

“To that end, as the elected President of the union representing classified staff at SOU, I offer this challenge directly to university leadership: if the administration commits to a matching sacrifice, I will voluntarily take a 50% reduction in salary in an effort to preserve as many positions as possible,” she said. “This is not a symbolic gesture – it is a sincere call for responsibility. The real question is: what is the administration willing to give up to protect the people who make the university run?”

“We must stop repeating this cycle,” she added. “We need transparency in where cuts are made, why certain positions are preserved while others are eliminated and how the administration is holding itself accountable.”

TeBeest on Thursday told Ashland.news she will also take a 20% reduction in pay – her current salary is $40,932 and will be reduced by $8,186 – through July 1, 2026, just as Bailey has done. His salary is $290,000 annually and will be reduced by $53,000 over the remaining 11 months of the current fiscal year, according to a board of trustees memo.

“Although it wasn’t what I proposed and (my proposal) was drastic … his willingness to make any kind of sacrifice was appreciated by me,” TeBeest told Ashland.news on Thursday in a phone interview.

TeBeest noted that Bailey’s pay reduction “could easily be a salary to a salary and a half” in savings for the university.

Bailey mentioned TeBeest by name during the virtual board meeting and thanked her for her efforts, though he didn’t specify she made the initial request.  

Bailey told SOU trustees on Wednesday that he chose the percentage reduction because former SOU President Linda Schott took the same pay cut during her time at SOU.  

TeBeest, in her third year leading the union, wrote in the letter:

“… (W)e are collectively facing unprecedented fiscal pressures – from under-enrollment and inadequate state support to potentially devastating federal cuts to TRIO, work study, PELL Grants, and financial aid accessibility. The situation is undeniably serious.

“Yet, while the structural deficit demands action, I must again raise the urgent and recurring concern voiced by staff across campus: It is always faculty and staff who are asked to bear the burden of sacrifice. We are once again facing a potential reduction of 45 positions  or more — on top of the 82 positions that were eliminated in June 2024. These are real people with families, not line items. They are the backbone of this institution – the ones who absorb the impact of every cut, who take on extra responsibilities, and who continue to uphold SOU’s mission under mounting strain.”

TeBeest noted cuts stemming from changes at the federal level that could be announced Friday include the elimination of funding for the Ronald E. McNair Post-Baccalaureate Achievement Program.

The program is named for McNair, who was a member of the Challenger space shuttle’s seven-person crew that perished in a 1986 explosion. As a tribute to his achievements, Congress and the McNair family formed the program in 1989 to assist young people in following McNair’s path and give them the opportunity to take the initiative to chart their own academic paths, according to SOU’s website.

SOU’s McNair program has provided an “intensive research experience and graduate school preparation to nearly 200 students since its inception with as many as 28 students selected for each year’s cohort of McNair Scholars,” the site says.

The SOU program offers one-on-one guidance from faculty mentors as it helps participants complete their undergraduate degrees, enroll in graduate school and prepare for doctoral studies, according to SOU. Scholars complete an eight-week research internship in the summer, attend weekly seminars to help prepare them for testing and graduate school applications, and travel to national McNair conferences and graduate program visitations.

The program is intended to help underrepresented and first-generation undergraduate students from low-income backgrounds to prepare for research-intensive doctoral programs, according to SOU’s website. SOU faculty members have traditionally nominated any students they feel may have the ability and desire to complete graduate school, and eligibility is sorted out during the application process.

TeBeest said other changes include less accessibility for PELL grants, which will be harder for SOU students to receive, requiring 15 credits – more than a full-time class load – to even be considered.

There has also been a 80% cut to work-study funding, which will also mean 80% fewer students that the university can hire, according to TeBeest.

TeBeest also noted it will be harder to qualify for student loans, which will no longer be subsidized. 

“(It used to be) you wouldn’t begin accruing interest until you either graduated or withdrew from school,” TeBeest said. “Now you’re going to be accruing interest from day one, the entire time you’re going to school. All of these things also impact future students and maybe even existing students on whether or not to come back or come to school at all. That right there is also hitting us with enrollment, which is going to be another thing that’s going to hurt the budget.”

TeBeest praised the SOU administration for its handling of the financial crisis at hand.

“Despite all of the things that have been consistently thrown at us, we have persevered in ways that other places haven’t,” TeBeest said. “There’s been closures across the country due to these types of things.”

As TeBeest looked ahead to Friday’s campus conversation, she anticipates it will be hard for the campus community and their families, especially during “such an uncertain economic time.”

“You don’t want to see anyone displaced and, in the current climate, good jobs with good benefits are difficult to find,” TeBeest said. “There are jobs, but not with the security we provide.

“I don’t know that anxiety levels have been reduced much in the last 24 to 36 months,” she added. “This will be our third consecutive year of reductions, layoffs or impacts of some sort.

“I don’t know the full scope (of cuts) yet, but what I do know is nothing is off the table.”

Reach Ashland.news reporter Holly Dillemuth at [email protected].

Related stories:

SOU trustees praise Bailey’s leadership during turbulent times at SOU, cut his pay $53K at his request (July 30, 2025)

SOU braces for $6 million in cuts: special trustee meeting Wednesday, ‘campus conversation’ Friday (July 28, 2025)

SOU President: ‘We can’t continue to cut our way to some type of success’ (June 24, 2025)

SOU President Bailey says ‘stark’ financial woes facing Oregon universities in 2025-26 constitute a ‘crisis’ (June 8, 2025)

SOU and faculty union agree to postpone contract negotiations for 18 months (May 29, 2025)

Anxious local schools face federal funding threats (Feb. 20, 2025)