Adjunct faculty, who numbered 45 this year, will not be laid off as their appointments are for specific term lengths, but Newman said most of those who would not be permitted to return had hoped to do so.

Ramsey Professor of Political Economy Richard J. Zeckhauser ’62 said that he thought reducing the number of adjunct faculty would have been a positive step even without a budget crisis.

“We had made many courtesy reappointments,” he said, although he added that those who had been selected to be released were not necessarily the right choices.

Although Newman said she expected that the plan would balance the school’s budget by Fiscal Year 2004, although she said that an external event like Sept. 11—which caused severe reductions in the school’s Executive Education program income—might make the goal impossible to meet.

Furthermore, she said that each unit in the school would have to adhere to the budget plan and cut costs.

Littauer Professor of Public Policy and Administration William Hogan said in April that at the Kennedy School, administrators consistently underestimate the overhead costs they need to run their programs, leading the school to grant requests that become more expensive than anticipated.

Although the school announced the staff cuts without a prior review by Harvard’s central administration, Nye will now meet with the Corporation, the University’s highest governing body, quarterly instead of annually to review the school’s situation.

The Corporation has been concerned with the school’s fiscal health and pressured Nye for change at a meeting this spring.

—David H. Gellis contributed to the reporting of this story.

—Staff writer Elisabeth S. Theodore can be reached at theodore@fas.harvard.edu.