President Gregory Geoffroy said in an e-mail to faculty and staff Tuesday that he expects the Board of Regents to direct Iowa’s universities to forgo general salary increases for faculty and staff.

The direction from the Regents would ask the universities to forgo fiscal year 2010 salary increases in order to deal with recent budget cuts. Geoffroy said FY10 appropriations could be down 11 percent or $31 million less than FY09.

He said discussion about salary increases and other methods of controlling costs will come up at the March 19 Board of Regents meeting in Iowa City.

“To help with balancing our budget, we plan to discuss with the Regents at their March 19 meeting an early retirement incentive plan,” Geoffroy said. “Since many of you have asked about the availability of such a plan, we do anticipate that a number of ISU faculty and staff will take advantage of this incentive.”

With budget numbers continuing to go down, some faculty and staff may take on new responsibilities, like teaching larger sections of students, Geoffroy said.

The final plan for dealing with the cuts will be presented to the Regents at its April 29-30 meetings in Cedar Falls, Geoffroy said.