Updated at 6:31 p.m. CST

Thirty-eight positions within the Department of Residence are being terminated for the 2005-2006 academic year, ISU officials announced Tuesday.

The positions were eliminated as part of an additional $400,000 budget cut bringing total reductions to the department’s budget for that academic year to $3.1 million.

The eliminations include custodial positions, maintenance positions and residence life staff positions in addition to previously cut academic resource coordinator positions.

The department is working with human resources to absorb as many employees as possible into other areas of the university. It’s hard to say at this point how many will be reassigned, said Todd Holcomb, associate vice president for student affairs and interim director of the Department of Residence.

“This is an extremely difficult situation, and we’re always concerned about individuals,” he said.

That concern is a strength at Iowa State, he said. Whenever positions must be terminated, there are people working to assist those displaced into other university positions.

Budget cuts have already resulted in the Department of Residence closing Wallace and Wilson residence halls along with the earlier staff eliminations.

When it came time to make cuts to the department’s budget, managers were asked to look at operations and make suggestions on ways to improve efficiency and effectiveness, Holcomb said.

Those suggestions for improved efficiency went beyond the original $2.7 million, so the department went ahead with additional changes, said Thomas Hill, vice president for student affairs.

“Once we got into it, we saw where we could improved our situation even more to get to $3.1 million,” Hill said.

Eliminating positions allowed the department to reorganize so it could better serve students while saving money, Holcomb said.

For example, custodians will be put into coverage areas, allowing them to work closer together. The new system will also be more flexible — custodians will be better able to cover areas requiring additional staff or cover the workload of a custodian out sick or on vacation, Holcomb said.

Students shouldn’t be adversely affected by the additional cuts, Holcomb and Hill said.

Holcomb said that Iowa State has an excellent custodial and maintenance staff, so services to students in those areas shouldn’t be diminished.

In fact, he said, some services in the residence halls may be improved.

An increased number of custodial staff committed to Schilletter Village and University Village Apartments should create a faster turnaround time on apartments for new and returning tenants, he said.

Hill said other offices at Iowa State, such as the Academic Success Center and Student Counseling Service, could pick up some of the slack from the lost services.

The cuts are as final as they can be at the present time, Hill said. The budget is based on projections for fall enrollment and occupancy rates. If the projections prove correct, no additional cuts will need to be made.

If rates fall, additional budget reductions may be necessary, he said.

“You never feel good about making cuts, reducing staff; that’s not a good thing,” Hill said. “But it is something we’re being forced to deal with, so we have to make the very best of it.”