The University of Maryland, College Park, laid off 84 employees on Wednesday, according to a letter sent to the faculty and students.

The cuts came after reductions in federal and state funding and an increase of $18 million in energy costs, according to the letter signed by the university’s President Darryll Pines, Senior Vice President and Provost Jennifer King Rice and Chief Financial Officer Greg Oler.

The University of Maryland has lost about 10%, or $104 million, in state funding over the last three years, and has had its federal research funding slashed.

“Arriving at these decisions required months of difficult analysis across the university,” Pines said. While the layoffs will be the last for this fiscal year, Pines added that the future is “uncertain.”

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“State budget forecasts continue to indicate significant fiscal pressures in the years ahead, and federal funding conditions remain unpredictable,” he said.

In the letter, university officials said they attempted to reduce discretionary spending, limit hiring and eliminate vacant positions, but the layoffs were still necessary “to ensure the university’s long-term financial sustainability.”

Stuart Katzenberg, Director of Collective Bargaining and Growth Strategies for AFSCME, the union that represents some university employees, confirmed to The Banner that members of the union were laid off as well.

“It is infuriating and disappointing that UMD has chosen to lay off the AFSCME members who make this university possible while wasting millions on a bloated administration and costly contractors,” he said, adding that the university system is sitting on private reserves and received money to fund wage increases this year. “The choice to pursue layoffs is simply unacceptable.”

The news comes over a month after the state university enacted a hiring freeze and originally projected there would be about 150 layoffs. It was the second time in two years that the university instituted a hiring freeze.

Banner reporter Ellie Wolfe contributed to this article.