Durham, NC - As of the December 8 deadline, 90 of the 198 eligible individuals had accepted the retirement incentive offered to monthly-paid staff in October as part of the university's effort to address its budgetary shortfall.

"This represents 45 percent of the eligible group, which is projected to save the university approximately $7 million," said Kyle Cavanaugh, vice president for Human Resources.

The numbers are still preliminary until after December 15 because staff have seven days to withdraw their acceptance.

Earlier this year, Duke announced that it would need to reduce the size of its workforce to help address the financial challenges it faced because about 60 percent of its operating budget is represented by compensation and benefits.

"Combined with the retirement incentive for biweekly-paid staff announced earlier, we will have reduced the size of the workforce by nearly 400 people through a voluntary process," Cavanaugh said.

Duke has also made significant strides to curtail hiring, reduce overtime, restrict pay increases, and enhance operational efficiencies to create savings.

Cavanaugh said that the workforce management strategies introduced throughout the year have made substantial progress in addressing the university's budgetary challenges.

"We have taken a very deliberate approach this year to reduce personnel costs in ways that would mitigate the potential for the large scale layoffs that many other institutions around us have had to employ," he said. "The people who attended information sessions throughout this process have been appreciative of the way this has been managed and the support they have received in making their decisions."

Cavanaugh added that at the beginning of next year, "we will need to recalibrate to determine where we are and how best to proceed."

After December 16, staff who accepted the retirement incentive and their managers will receive confirmation. Those accepting the incentive will receive a lump-sum payment upon their retirement by December 31, 2009 or January 29, 2010.