More than two months after laying off 122 employees, the Community College of Rhode Island is planning to restore salary increases and bring back previously laid off workers.

In a community letter issued from CCRI last Thursday, CCRI President Meghan Hughes says the college was anticipating a “multi-million dollar budgetary shortfall and needed to take action to secure the college’s financial stability. We faced a steep decline in enrollment, no state budget for FY 21, and state leaders forecasting significant multi-million dollar cuts across all agencies. With fall and spring enrollment finalized and state budgetary cuts restored for the current fiscal year, we are in a stronger position today than we were last fall.”

In December, the union representing education support professionals at CCRI voted no confidence in Hughes and Associate Vice President Alix Ogden, citing the layoffs and poor management.

“Our members are the lowest paid employees at CCRI, yet we have been the most severely impacted from you administration’s poor institutional management. While 16 percent of our members’ jobs have been eliminated, high-level administrator positions have ballooned on your watch,” wrote Michael McNally, president of the CCRI Educational Support Professionals Association (ESPA), in a letter to Hughes and Ogden when the layoffs were first announced.

According to her letter, Hughes said the Council on Postsecondary Education unanimously approved reinstating the FY 21 pay increases for CCRI’s Faculty Association and Professional Staff Association. The salary increases will be retroactive per each collective bargaining agreement. Additionally, previously announced salary reductions taken by vice presidents and associate vice presidents will not be restored for the current fiscal year.

The college is also working toward restoring CCRI’s workforce.

“Working in partnership with the Rhode Island Departments of Administration and Health, we were able to reassign the ESPA employees laid off during the pandemic to assist the state in its COVID contact tracing efforts. When their reassignments conclude, we expect to welcome them back to our college,” Hughes said in the letter.

Hughes also mentioned the college will resume critical hiring. After reviewing existing vacancies, the administration has prioritized posting for critical positions, including chief information officer, academic deans, student advisers, payroll staff and information technology staff, among others.

“We will proceed by reinvesting in vacant positions that set the college up for ongoing stability and strong student learning outcomes,” Hughes said in the letter.

When the vote of no confidence was first taken, McNally wrote that leadership must engage in dialogue with the union, assure the 28 workers who were reassigned to the COVID task force that they have jobs to which they can return, and treat the entire membership with the dignity and respect they deserve in order to regain the confidence of the ESPA members.

In an interview Tuesday, McNally said that union is “satisfied with the college’s decision to rescind the layoffs and allow the reassigned members to return to their college jobs when released from the Department of Health.”

A few employees have returned to the college, but McNally said they were mostly lab technicians for nursing and dental programs.

“We have no timeline of when the return is for everyone else,” McNally said. “There’s rumors about April and others have said June, but it really all depends on when they’re no longer needed at the Department of Health.”

No rescind letters have gone out yet to laid-off employees, and McNally is pushing the CCRI human resources department to get those letters out. “It’s one thing to verbalize it, but the employees really want the letters to solidify coming back.”

McNally says the union isn’t thrilled with the process, and still has “bitterness” toward the administration.

Leadership within the college is no longer involved with the layoffs and continues to have very limited contact with the ESPA union. McNally said Ogden “handed it off to HR.”