LITTLE ROCK — University of Arkansas at Fayetteville employees will spend the next few weeks processing contracts and resetting payroll software to reflect UA System President B. Alan Sugg’s decision last week to suspend most employee raises.
Meanwhile, administrators searched for ways to ease the impact on the employees.
The UA had already notified nearly 2,800 employees that they would be getting pay increases, when Sugg agreed last week to Gov. Mike Beebe’s request to fix most salaries at fiscal 2010 levels. Fiscal 2010 ends Wednesday.
Don Pederson, UA vice chancellor for finance, attributed the compensation change to a “misunderstanding.” Although the governor’s budget included no money for public employee raises, the UA’s trustees had approved a budget that allowed for some increases.
“Our raises are not tied to what the state appropriates,” he said. “They haven’t been for a long time.”
The state’s universities absorbed two mid-fiscal-year budget cuts last year after state revenue came in below projections.
Public universities across the nation are in a similar situation, freezing or cutting faculty pay because of their states’ budget squeezes.
The College and University Professional Association for Human Resources, which conducts an annual survey on faculty pay, said in a report released in March that almost one-third of faculty members made less money during the 2009-10 academic year. Overall faculty pay was not increased, according to the report.
Some faculty and staff members are taking action.
Rutgers University, a public institution, has frozen pay for the coming academic year. Unions filed a complaint with the New Jersey Public Employees Relations Commission against the school.
At UA-Fayetteville, the state’s largest university, there may be some exceptions to the raise policy, Pederson said. He referred to employees whose changes in job titles came with accompanying raises or employees with multiyear pay plans in their contracts, such as head coaches.
But raises for years of service and merit raises, averaging 2 percent, will be canceled, he said.
About 1,600 classified employees’ pay will rise in accordance with a 2010 state mandated pay scale - which the UA fulfilled halfway in the recent fiscal year - but planned raises, averaging about 2 percent, will be canceled.
The pay of classified employees, such as administrative assistants and janitors, is set on a fixed scale used for Arkansas public employees.
Money committed in the budget to raises will be set aside and may be given retroactively in January after Beebe’s office reassesses the state’s fiscal’s condition, Pederson said.
Scott Varady, legal counsel at UA, said letters sent to employees informing them of new compensation levels are not legally binding. No employees have filed complaints about the change, he added.
OFFERING SMALL PERKS
Ro DiBrezzo, chairman of the UA faculty senate, said employees are disappointed at the sudden change in compensation plans.
This is the second consecutive year that professors will go without raises.
“You get to a point where you say, ‘I can’t get too far behind because there’s no recovery,’” DiBrezzo said. “And you know that when [a raise] does come, it’s going to be modest.”
Chancellor G. David Gearhart sent an e-mail to faculty and staff members last week offering a 5 percent discount on employee parking passes and linking the discount to the cancellation of raises.
“Please know we are looking for ways to show how much we appreciate your many contributions to the University of Arkansas and your steadfast commitment to our students and programs,” he wrote.
Vice Provost Danny Pugh said administrators will search for other employee discounts it can offer in coming weeks.
In meeting with Sugg, Beebe conceded that his office could not require the UA System to back off raises, but he “strongly recommended” that they do so, according to a UA release.
DiBrezzo said most faculty members seem understanding about the university’s position in not wanting to challenge the governor.
“Not only was it unfortunate that it happened, but the timing of it was even more unfortunate,” she said. “I think they felt quite comfortable that they had gotten the endorsement and the approval from all the necessary parties.”
STATE’S MEMORANDUM
The possibility of suspending raises for higher-education employees was first formally raised in a memorandum sent by state Finance Director Richard Weiss dated May 26.
On May 21, the UA System board of trustees approved budget increases for UA campuses. The budgets included small, undedicated reserves in case of less-than-expected state revenue. Salaries are paid from the universities’ educational and general fund, which consists of about half tuition money and fees and half state contributions.
“The misunderstanding in communication is what led us to implement them,” Pederson said of the now-canceled raises.
Sugg said last week that he couldn’t remember a time when the governor’s office had intervened in the pay for nonclassified staff members.
Pederson said UA leaders interpreted the memorandum as applying only to classified employees.
AT THE CAPITOL
Beebe spokesman Matt DeCample said the governor’s office position on compensation was made clear in February when the Legislature approved a budget that did not include money for raises.
“I think it was pretty clear in the last fiscal session that both the administration and the Legislature felt that raises would not be a prudent move to make in the climate that we’re in,” he said. “I think anyone who followed the fiscal session understood that.”
But UA officials thought that a modest increase would still be possible within the constraints of its budget, Pederson said.
“We understood that the state was not going to give us funds for raises,” he said. “But we’ve had growth in our enrollment. Between that added revenue and the tuition increases itself, there was money in our budget for a small increase.”
SOME UAMS RAISES
At the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, 248 employees are receiving base pay increases, a spokesman said. That includes 196 at Head Start, whose federal contracts mandate the increases; 15 faculty physicians in the College of Medicine, who were given raises for retention purposes; and 37 College of Medicine faculty members, who received raises as part of an adjustment to the base and incentive pay plan. Under that adjustment, 107 faculty members in the College of Medicine are receiving decreases in their base pay and will be relying more on incentive bonuses.
NO ASU SYSTEM RAISES
The Arkansas State University System won’t be increasing salaries this fall, incoming interim President Robert L. Potts said last week.
The administrative staff in the state’s second-largest university system will be treated like everyone else at the main Jonesboro campus. Money that would have gone for raises from a tuition increase will be set aside, pending a mid-academic-year review.
Although trustees set Potts’ annual pay at $226,330 as interim president, starting Thursday, Potts said, he plans to earn $221,892, the same pay that outgoing President J. Leslie Wyatt earned in 2009-10.Wyatt is leaving the presidency effective Wednesday.
“I won’t take a pay raise when no one else is getting one,” said Potts, who has run the ASU-Jonesboro campus since November 2006.
Information for this article was contributed by Kenneth Heard of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Arkansas, Pages 17 on 06/27/2010