Tech Not Under Hiring Freeze

While Tennessee Tech will not be directly impacted by the governor’s decision to freeze state hiring, the campus got the message.

“We’re taking a very conservative approach currently to resource allocations, spending in general,” Dr. Phil Oldham said. “We hope to be back in a relatively normal operational stance in the fall, but there’s a lot of unknowns.”

Governor Bill Lee ordered all state agencies Monday to freeze hiring not related to fighting COVID-19. Oldham said the order does not apply to state universities. Oldham said the university continues to carefully watch its spending but has no plans to freeze hiring.

Oldham said his team continues to prepare for a June reexamination of the state budget as legislators return to Nashville. Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson said Tuesday the “hold spending steady” budget implemented will likely not be enough.

“Our planning is really around multiple options,” Oldham said. “Coming up with a lot of redundancy plans, backup options depending on what the situation is at the time.”

The Tech budget team went through a stress-test budgeting model last year, Oldham said, to plan for “what-if” scenarios. But Oldham added COVID-19 presents a unique budgeting challenge.

“There are so many unpredicted variables associated with this,” Oldham said. “We don’t know what we’re going to be facing in two-to-three weeks let alone three to four months.”

And COVID-19 could affect multiple revenue streams from state funding to student enrollment.

“We’re trying to look at all of that and be prepared,” Oldham said.