The University of Oregon’s Board of Trustees voted Tuesday to approve UO's budget for its next school year.
The board advanced a $1.54 billion operating budget for Fiscal Year 2026, which started July 1 and will run through next June.
At the Trustees meeting in Portland Tuesday, union leaders demanded the vote be delayed, repeating their earlier objections that the budget process has been rushed and hasn’t included enough worker input.
But UO Board of Trustees Chair Steve Holwerda defended the timeline. He argued that once the university received its enrollment data in May, it had to act quickly to address its fiscal deficit.
“Every month that goes by, there's more money lost," said Howlerda. "And if there were no changes made, we don't have a savings account anymore. In about three years, it's gone.”
The university has announced plans to cut a total of 176 positions, laying off 117 workers.
Mae Bracelin, the interim president of UO Student Workers, said the union is tracking an estimated 100 additional job cuts for its unit, which isn’t included in UO’s count.
Bracelin said this includes workers who weren't reappointed to their jobs, and who've been unable to reach their minimum hours requirement because there are too few shifts available in their workplaces.
"It's a pretty big departure from how scheduling used to work for dining workers," said Bracelin. "And it is unfortunately eroding one of the most important parts about student employment at the University of Oregon, which is scheduling flexibility."
UO has also said it will offer fewer Graduate Employee positions in the future. And university officials detailed other non-personnel changes, such as requiring some tenure-track faculty to teach larger classes.
At Tuesday’s meeting, some students and alumni criticized a move by UO Clark Honors College to pull its funding from the forensics program, which includes mock trial and speech and debate.
The honors college, along with Associated Students of UO provided support to the forensics program.
ASUO President Prissilla Moreno said her organization may have been able to take on a greater share of the burden with more notice.
“We were never asked how we could be part of the solution,” said Moreno. “We were simply told that a historic program serving students was ending in less than two weeks, and we see the same lack of student representation in the campus-wide budget reductions.”
Unfair labor violations
Meanwhile, Oregon’s Employment Relations Board recently reprimanded the University of Oregon over the school’s past treatment of its student worker’s union.
According to a board ruling from Sept. 10, UO management acted unlawfully when it asked employees to remove union pins and were told to not discuss labor organizing on the clock.
UO also reportedly blocked union card-signing in residence halls, stopped a union organizer from presenting in class, and told Residence Assistants that they could lose out on a stipend increase based on the outcome of the union’s campaign.
Bracelin said these incidents were early in the union’s formation, and she looks forward to not encountering them again.
“Most of these issues have since that time ceased as the University has pulled itself together on understanding that UO Student Workers, our local, is a union, isn’t going anywhere, and can’t be pushed around.”
The board didn’t issue any fines against the university, finding that the conduct wasn’t repetitive, knowing, or flagrant.
UO didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
