An offer to 87 faculty and staff to retire by June 1, 2011 has resulted in 30 volunteers for retirement.

The offer was a one-time buyout of the greater of 40 percent of the employee’s baseline salary or $1,000 for each year of employment at Southern (up to $20,000).

Of the 30, 17 were staff and 13 were faculty members.

Their decisions will save Missouri Southern a little under $700,000 in the next fiscal year.

Rob Yust, vice president of business affairs, said this will begin saving money in Fiscal Year 2011-12, but it is unknown if any of the retirees will be replaced or how much their replacement salary would be.

“All that has to be determined … those [who retired] are the longstanding employees, so their salaries are probably a lot higher than what we would [give someone else],” Yust said.

To qualify for retirement under the Missouri State Employees Retirement System, the employees had to either meet the “Rule of 80,” are age 60 with at least 15 years at Southern or age 65 with five years at Southern.

The Rule of 80 means the employee’s years at Southern plus their age equals at least 80 years.

Employees hired after the year 2000 could retire at age 62 with five years.