LITTLE ROCK — The University of Arkansas at Fayetteville had already notified nearly 1,200 faculty and staff members of planned pay increases when it learned last week that the state’s finance director suspended raises for most public employees.
UA-Fayetteville officials budgeted to provide merit based increases averaging 2 percent for nonclassified employees - teaching staff and administrators whose compensation is not dictated by a state pay scale - at the start of the fiscal 2011 year on July 1.
The university will await official word from University of Arkansas System President B. Alan Sugg before suspending the raises, Chancellor G. David Gearhart said Monday. The pay adjustments are already programmed into the university’s computer system and reversing them would require hours of manual data entry, he said.
“It would be a huge undertaking,” Gearhart said. “The timing of this is difficult. I’m not sure if we’d have to retrieve those letters or send out a memo saying the increases are canceled. I don’t know.”
Arkansas State University at Jonesboro, the University of Central Arkansas at Conway and the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, among others, are now changing their plans to give raises.
ASU-Jonesboro, for example, is putting its originally planned money for raises into an escrow account in case raises can be handed out later in the fiscal year.
UCA said it is reviewing the situation, adding that it will do everything it can to give employees raises that were originally planned in the budget “as soon as the state will allow it,” said spokesman Venita Jenkins.
UALR, meanwhile, has begun the process of reversing its budgeted raises.
“It will take many staff hours to reverse the budgeted raises that were approved, but we have started that process,” said Sandra Robertson, UALR chief of staff and director of budget, in an e-mail. “I believe we can be finished by July 1.”
Richard Weiss, the Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration director, caught some higher education officials by surprise Thursday when he told a legislative committee that the state planned to limit pay increases at public institutions, only allowing universities to fulfill fiscal 2010 raises for classified employees that many delayed because of budgetary constraints.
Many universities gave classified employees only half the required pay increase in fiscal 2010, which began July 1, 2009.
Classified employees at universities are those in nonfaculty positions, which include janitors, grounds workers and administrative assistants.
In an e-mail to UA-Fayetteville faculty and staff sent Friday, Gearhart said he was “extremely troubled by the latest information,” and planned to seek a clarification before adjusting salaries back to previous levels.
At the legislative meeting, Weiss sought to clarify a May 26 memo to agency directors that called for pay plans for fiscal 2011 to remain at fiscal 2010 levels.
The memo called for a suspension of 2.3 percent cost-of living adjustments provided for classified employees and suspended “classified and unclassified employee merit increases,” saying pay would be revisited as the state’s revenue becomes clearer later in the year.
Gearhart said the memo’s reference to “unclassified employee merit increases” made it unclear because the category is technically referred to as “nonclassified.”
The memo followed an announcement in January that Gov. Mike Beebe’s budget included no money for state employee raises.
“We understood that it pertained to the [state-mandated] pay plan,” Sugg said. “We did not understand that this applied to faculty and nonclassified staff. We’re surprised and disappointed.”
Sugg, system president since 1990, said he could not recall a time when state finance directors intervened in the pay of nonclassified employees.
The UA board of trustees on May 21 approved budget increases for UA campuses, including small, undedicated reserves in case of less-than expected state revenues. Salaries are paid from the universities’ educational and general fund, made up of tuition, fees and state contributions.
The Fayetteville campus’ 5.47 percent increase over the budget administrators proposed for the current fiscal year included plans to fulfill the classified employee pay plan and provide merit-based increases of up to 5 percent and averaging 2 percent for nonclassified employees, who received no pay increases in fiscal 2010.
The state’s revenue fell short of projections last year, forcing two budget cuts that led to pay and hiring freezes at many colleges and universities.
Sugg continues to discuss the situation with state employees, but he’ll ask campuses to comply with Weiss’ plan, he said.
“I’m not optimistic that we can do anything, but that doesn’t mean that we’re not trying,” Sugg said. “We’re all in the same lifeboat, the state and the universities and colleges.”
At the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, “as an institution we had already made the decision not to give raises in July,” said Leslie W. Taylor, associate vice chancellor in the Office of Communications & Marketing, by e-mail.
“However, there are a few cases where salary adjustments have been made, particularly in the College of Medicine where we needed to retain faculty physicians.” UAMS could not provide late Monday how many employees were affected by the salary adjustments.
Jim Purcell, director of the state Department of Higher Education, told lawmakers last week some education officials have questioned whether state finance directors can tell universities to withhold pay increases from employees.
The UA Fayetteville employs about 1,600 classified employees and about 1,200 nonclassified employees, spokesman Charlie Alison said.
Gearhart said the UA did not provide pay increases this fiscal year, while many state agencies did.
The UA has the fifth lowest average faculty salaries for any of the nation’s flagship universities, Gearhart said.
“We’re already losing good people because of the salaries that we pay,” he said. “We’ve done everything we can to save money so that we can pass it on to our faculty and staff.”
Arkansas, Pages 8 on 06/22/2010