Heavy Workload

Keni Cyr’s letter to the editor (Sept. 6) regarding the article, “University Grounds Tidied by Volunteers” (Aug. 20), shows a complete lack of understanding of UCI’s financial status. As an employee in the School of Humanities, I can safely say that not one of those “administrative personnel” who assisted in the cleanup is being paid a “six-figure” salary. In fact, none of us has had a raise in almost three years. Unlike the regents, we have neither too much time nor money on our hands.

We have lost personnel to budget cutbacks and we are all overwhelmed with the added workload. Each day we struggle to come up with ways to save more money and work within the budget allotted us, which has been slashed drastically for several years in a row. Many of us regularly come in early and work through lunch to keep things running smoothly.

Those two hours (not “an entire afternoon”) in the sun gave us a well-deserved and much-needed morale boost. We went back to work with renewed enthusiasm, feeling better about ourselves and our surroundings.

JUDI FRANZ, UC Irvine