Top officials at Wayne State University School of Medicine sent a letter today to 527 faculty members at the medical school calling on them to step up their game to help the Detroit-based medical school turn around a $1.5 million monthly deficit.

The letter, penned by Jack Sobel, M.D., dean of the medical school, and David Hefner, the university’s vice president for health affairs, makes it clear that unproductive faculty members — estimated at 60 to 80 — will not be tolerated in the future because of the financial drain to the school.

In the letter, Sobel and Hefner said the issue of unproductive faculty must be addressed as part of the overall plan to eliminate a $29 million medical school deficit.

“Too many of our faculty (members) have been unproductive for many years,” the professors were told. “They have been allowed to consume needed resources totaling many millions of dollars.

“Unproductive faculty members seriously limit the school’s ability to attract additional talent to advance our education, research and clinical missions. This places an unfair burden on productive faculty and impedes our ability to build a bright future for all.”

A medical school retreat is scheduled for March 4 and is expected to include a wide-ranging discussion on how to increase research grant funding and clinical service revenue, Hefner told Crain’s in response to information about the letter.

Total employees at the medical school and University Physician Group, the faculty medical practice plan, are 2,806:1,305 at UPG and 1,501 at the medical school. Medical school faculty totals 572, officials said.

Last December, Wayne State’s medical school and faculty practice plan announced it had lost $29 million during fiscal 2015 ended Sept. 30.

A turnaround team composed of Sobel and Hefner has been reviewing options to cutting costs and increasing revenue.

Hefner told Crain’s last week the turnaround team identified $40 million to $60 million in savings and revenue enhancements.

Of that amount, $10 million to $20 million could come from faculty improvements, which would require more faculty production but also some expected faculty reductions.

Hefner said 60 to 80 faculty members had been identified as unproductive, meaning the amount of money they generate in research grants or clinical services does not come close to their salaries.

“This will be riveting to them. We are asking them to increase research and the number of patients they see,” said Hefner, noting it could take up to three years for the process to be complete. “We want them to live up to expectations.”

Besides discussing the problem in town hall meetings, the medical school administration has presented the problem to the university’s Board of Governors.

“Faculty members who will be identified as insufficiently productive will receive a letter soon notifying them of that fact and the next steps to be taken,” said the letter.

Any actual faculty firings, however, would require working with the faculty union, Wayne State’s AAUP-AFT, Local 6075.

In a Feb. 22 letter to bargaining unit members, Charles Parrish, president of the faculty union, said an advisory committee has been appointed with representation from the medical school and the university to address the problem.

Parrish warned the union that without action, the medical school’s projected deficit for 2016 could range from $12 million to $24 million.

“We are also consulting our lawyers on this matter,” Parrish said. “Ultimately, the power to make decisions for the union is in the hands of the executive committee for bargaining unit members at the (medical school) and the main campus.

“A key element that the union will expect is that there must be shared sacrifices that include administrative budget cuts,” Parrish said.

Under the university’s collective bargaining agreement, a “financial exigency” would need to be declared by the Board of Governors in order to lay off tenured and tenure-track faculty in certain programs, Parrish said.

“The process is slow and involves the appointment of a consultative committee to consider the validity of the declaration,” Parrish said.

However, once a decision is agreed upon, layoffs could “proceed in an order determined by the seniority of faculty members, by rank beginning with those in the lowest rank. The first to go are junior faculty, assistant professors, then associates and then full professors,” Parrish said.

Several other methods could be found to reduce costs, including simply boosting revenue through various means, Parrish said.

Another method could be to undertake the process of “de-tenuring” professors, which would require hearings on each faculty member to determine if and how they are unproductive, said Parrish.

Typically, university professors are expected to offset 25 percent of their salaries by external grant funding. High-performing universities have professors that average 50 percent to 60 percent of their salaries through external grants and research.

But at Wayne State medical school, Hefner said, the average is “10 to 12 percent. That is unacceptable.”

For example, in fiscal year 2015, medical school faculty brought in $117 million in research grants and sponsored awards, but only $12 million of salary was recovered from these grants.

If Wayne State moved to a national median, $5 million to $15 million more could be recovered, Hefner told Crain’s in a previous interview.

Hefner said the turnaround team also expects additional savings to come from improved services, including billing and revenue cycle enhancements, productive faculty securing more grants and increasing the number of patients seen.

While not part of the calculations for reversing the $29 million deficit, Wayne State medical school officials believe a revised clinical and medical education contract with Detroit Medical Center could help solidify the schools financial future.

The two clinical partners began contract talks last month and hope to have a new contract in hand before March 31, when the current contract expires.