UCI Printing Department, 10 Jobs Fall to Budget Ax : University: Move comes after task forces sent dozens of other recommendations that would cut $4 million. Chancellor must decide the fate of several departments.

UC Irvine’s printing department will close for good and its 10 employees will be laid off in an ongoing series of steps aimed at cutting the budget, a university spokeswoman said Tuesday.

Seven full-time employees will lose their jobs when UCI’s printing and reprographics department closes May 15, UCI spokeswoman Linda Granell said. Three part-time or temporary workers also will be laid off, print shop employees said.

The moves came more than a month after two university task forces--one focusing on academic departments and the other looking at non-academic services--issued various broad recommendations to reduce the 1994-95 budget by about $4 million. The dozens of proposals issued Feb. 17 include eliminating comparative cultural and physical education programs and the teachers’ credential program, as well as reducing the number of vice chancellors by half.

Campus groups and committees have pored through the recommendations for budget cuts since February and will send their objections and suggestions to Chancellor Laurel L. Wilkening for her consideration by April 15, UCI spokeswoman Karen Newell Young said. Wilkening is expected to decide on the fate of several departments by the end of the school year in June.

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The task force on non-academic issues did not specifically recommend closing the print shop, Granell said. Printing department layoffs resulted from a review process that had been underway before the task force was formed, she said.

Print shop workers produce stationery, forms and documents for other university departments, Granell said.

The university has been exploring the option of contracting with private companies to provide services now done by university support employees, Granell said. She added that the printing department has been operating with a deficit of about $500,000.

Louise Anderson, representative of the local University Professional and Technical Employees Union, said administrators ignored employees’ proposals for ways to make the print shop profitable before closing the department.

“Workers have offered a business plan--a series of suggestions that haven’t been taken,” Anderson said.

Workers who will be laid off will be given preference when the university begins to hire new employees, she said, but print shop employees are unlikely to have specialized technical skills to work in other departments.

Under the university’s plan, Anderson said, the employees may take a free UC Extension class each quarter to learn new skills.

“But realistically, that is not going to retrain them for another position,” she said.