The University of Oklahoma Press lays off eight employees despite promises from OU President David Boren that furloughs or lay offs would not be necessary to maintain the school's budget. Elizabeth Nalewajk/The Daily

The University of Oklahoma Press laid off eight workers Wednesday, the same day OU President David Boren announced the university did not forsee OU needing to layoff employees.

“I don’t want [ the media] saying we expect anything like that,” Boren said Wednesday after the meeting of the OU Board of Regents in Ardmore, referring to potential layoffs or furloughs. “That would have to be like the end of the world, virtually.”

B. Byron Price, director of the University of Oklahoma Press, said the layoffs had been under consideration for several months.

“They’ve been in process for a while, because it takes a long time for those to you know, work through the review process,” he said.

Price said the layoffs as “across the board,” affecting the administrative, editorial, production and shipping and receiving departments.

According to Price, the layoffs come as the OU Press plans to reduce its book-publishing output by 20 percent in the coming fiscal year.

“Returns from wholesalers, lower demand for product, books, which many publishers, university publishers and commercial publishers are experiencing [led to the reductions],” he said. “And employee and production costs have impacted university presses nationwide.”

Price said the press reduced its budget by 11 percent during the current fiscal year through internal cuts and savings, but those reductions weren’t enough to avoid layoffs.

Catherine Bishop, vice president for student affairs, said the OU press works as a separate enterprise with a different financial structure than the rest of the university.

“The University of Oklahoma Press is an auxiliary enterprise that produces books which generate sales,” Bishop said in an e-mail. “The OU Press has implemented a reduction in force involving eight employees to right-size for the amount of work they have scheduled for the year. This is not unusual for an entity where business and therefore, workforce needs, ebb and flow with national trends. Of course, our hope is that those impacted would consider other jobs available at OU.”

Bishop said the layoffs at the OU Press were not a result of the budget adopted at the Regents meeting last week.

“The reduction in force at the OU Press wwas not a result of the budget adopted for the next fiscal year, but rather a business decision by a revenue generating unit to align its workforce for the upcoming fiscal year with its production schedule for the year,” she said.

Price said while the layoffs were unwanted, they were necessary.

“We still needed to cut our budget by another 12 percent,” he said. “And that couldn’t be achieved without a reduction in force. We looked at everything, and felt that although it was difficult, it was really necessary, because it’s impossible for us to have a 20 percent reduction in book production wthout reducing our workforce simultaneously.”

Price said that the layoffs would take affect at least 30 days after last Wednesday.

“At this point, we’re hoping that we’ll be able to extend it,” he said. “But, at least 30 days.”