Today marks the deadline to apply for the Staff Retirement Incentive program. Engineered and implemented earlier this month, the program was a “one-time-only” opportunity for staff to apply to retire early, in an effort to help alleviate excess financial strain on the University.

We saw the incentive plan as an appropriate gesture. Predicting massive layoffs, the University gave staff the chance to reconsider retiring amidst the financial turmoil in exchange for an “enhanced contribution” to the employee’s retirement fund in addition to a lump-sum payment.

In the next two weeks, Mary Opperman, vice president for human services, alongside a team of the University’s top financial advisers, will be analyzing those who applied for the incentive. But what will they be looking for in the applicants? And who will reap the benefits of the incentive?

In Opperman’s initial announcement of the plan, she claimed that the University would work to approve all applications for early retirement, citing that if the number of applications exceeded the number allowable by the program’s limited funding, staffers with the most number of years under their belt would be granted the incentive package. However, how appropriate is this plan of action?

How could seniority be the only issue considered in moving forward with staff cutbacks? We have no doubt that the University already knows what stands next in line for the chopping block, following in the steps of the Knight Visual Resource Facility and the Physical Sciences Library. Thus, staffers working in soon to be cut departments and facilities should be considered first for early retirement incentives, regardless of seniority.

The University should already have an idea as to which positions are mission critical for the school and which they plan to phase out. Therefore, the retirement incentive could more justly serve as a means of dissolving positions already deemed extraneous and costly.

A retirement incentive for only the most senior of Cornell’s staff members seems too simplistic in effort to streamline programs across campus. Such decisions must be made strategically, with regards to efficacy and efficiency — and not only be routed in a staffer’s age or tenure of employment.

It is clear that the University feels obliged to offer retirement incentives in light of the backlash that will inevitably come with future layoffs. But we feel the current method of promoting early retirement based on years of service to Cornell disregards the bigger picture issues and overall well-being of the University.

Still, we do applaud Cornell’s step towards a more decent staff reduction process. In the end, however, we hope Opperman and others keep an eye on what’s best for the University as a whole in the long run.