Starved of funds because of a budget impasse in the Illinois legislature, Chicago State University has laid off 300 of its employees.
The Chicago Sun-Times reports that the affected employees maker up about 35 percent of administrative and non-faculty staff at the university, which serves a predominantly minority, low-income student population on the city's South Side.
The layoffs on April 30 came a week after Chicago State received $20.1 million from a long-stalled $600 million emergency funding bill for public universities.
But that money was less than 60 percent of the $37 million the university had counted on getting from the state this year.
More cuts are expected in subsequent weeks, when contracts for faculty members expire.
Chicago State depends on the state for 30 percent of its entire budget, a greater ratio than Illinois’ other public colleges with larger endowments, so the budget impasse has affected it more than other institutions.
The school sent layoff notices to all its staffers earlier this year stating that an unspecified number would lose their jobs after April 30 unless it received full funding. It also canceled spring break to shorten its semester.
