The proposed restructure is rolling out, Vice Chancellor Andrew Vann tells staff

While the newly released 2019 annual report shows a small financial surplus, “we are projecting a significant deficit and revenue loss in 2020, primarily as a result of the impacts of COVID-19 which has exacerbated previous issues,” he tells staff.

This is in-line with Professor Vann’s previous warnings that CSU needed to restructure courses and campus to be viable (CMM April 3 and May 5) – warnings that have not gone down well with state and federal members representing electorates in its central west NSW heartland (CMM, April 2, 3 and June 3).

But there is no time to muck-around the VC says, Charles Sturt U must have a balanced budget by the end of next year, which means rolling-out the job-reducing Sustainable Futures plan.

Professor Vann adds the university’s council “has confirmed” CSU cannot participate in the national job protection framework.

“The restrictions that the NTEU insisted on in relation to forced redundancies were seen to create uncertainty compared to the known mechanisms of our existing enterprise agreement. The time to finalise drafting also meant the university had moved forward with the Sustainable Futures program in defining immediate actions and a structured process to reviewing organisational structure and course profile.”

That the “proposed deal was complex and required compromise not acceptable to the university” can’t have helped either

Professor Vann led the four VCs who negotiated the national accord with the NTEU (CMM April 2).