Faculty, staff get more, as CMU gets less

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Pay raises given to faculty and staff this year totaled $6.95 million.
Many of those raises were provided through program reductions or
eliminations, hiring freezes and staff layoffs.

Pay raises given to faculty and staff this year totaled $6.95 million.
Many of those raises were provided through program reductions or
eliminations, hiring freezes and staff layoffs.

CMU cut a total of $10.2 million out of its budget this year, but
almost 70 percent of the cuts were because of pay raises — contractual
and discretionary.

Faculty received a 4.1 percent salary increase and staff received a
3 percent increase in the last year.

In the last 3 years, CMU has cut nearly $30 million from the budget.
Yet, CMU’s given out more than $13.2 million in raises during the past
two years.

While the administration continues its budget crisis rhetoric, these
figures leave some asking: What budget crisis?

There are two reasons, officials say, that triggered these
deficit-creating wage increases: Contracts with bargaining employees
and the need to remain competitive in salaries with non-union staff.

George Ross, vice president of Finance and Administrative Services
who earned $159,529 in 2004, said CMU increases faculty and
administrative salaries in times of financial crisis in order to stay
competitive.

“In terms of salary, we need to live up to the national benchmark,”
Ross said. “Unless we stay competitive, we fall short.”

Maxine Kent, associate vice president of Human Resources, agrees
with Ross about staff salaries.

“It is most important to keep salaries competitive. The cost of
finding someone new if we lose them to another institution is anywhere
from $60,000 to $80,000. It is a tremendous cost and loss of
institutional knowledge,” she said.

Differences in faculty salaries depend on several factors, including
skills that are more sought after, teaching experience, hire date,
union factor and academic rank.

Earnings for 2004 of the highest paid faculty include: Men’s
basketball coach Jay Smith, $172,839; Accounting Chairman Philip
Kintzele, $162,214; Finance and Law Professor Raymond Cox, $158,182;
Sociology, Anthropology and Social Work Professor Leonard Lieberman
$151,235 and Business Information Systems Professor Roger Hayen,
$151,221.

Salary increases for faculty and staff, aside from contracted
increases, include bonuses and incentives that raise the base salary.
For example, Smith was contracted to make $150,000 in 2003-04, but the
eight-year coach’s earnings totaled $195,000.

Employees at CMU are divided into groups. There are 36 senior
officers and 656 professional and administrative employees who are not
unionized. Employee groups include office professionals (325), police
officers (15), public broadcasting (30), supervisory technical (130),
service maintenance (190), regular faculty (640), and temporary faculty
(240).

The Faculty Association represents regular, tenure or tenure-track
faculty. The organization has long contended it needs pay raises to
keep colleagues from going elsewhere.

In May 2004, CMU announced layoffs among staff where 51 employees
received informal notice, and 18 employees were affected by the
university’s bumping process.

Of the 69 employees affected, 20 moved into comparable vacant
positions elsewhere in the university, 14 were reduced to less than
full time or at a lower pay level, 25 were formally laid off and 10 had
employment changes delayed until the next fiscal year.

Mike Silverthorn, executive director of News Services, spoke on
University President Michael Rao’s behalf regarding the pay increases.
Rao is the highest paid employee at CMU, earning $232,760 in 2004.

Rao’s philosophy has been to remain competitive in the marketplace,
even during budget shortfalls and layoffs, Silverthorn said.

“This philosophy has been well worth it,” he said. “Although we
can’t quantify, it is very probable that if salary increases would have
been put on hold over the last two years, the university would have
seen increased employee turnover, which raises training costs and
impacts productivity and recruiting,” he said.

During these times of budget concern, Kent said making salary cuts
for faculty and staff has been considered.

“We look at not giving salary increases every year and have spoken
with all unions. We consider making salary cuts in order to save
bodies, but everyone agrees we keep asking the faculty staying to do
more and more. Paying them less is self-defeating,” she said.

Silverthorn said Rao has the same views on eliminating increases in
salary.

“We have asked our employees to do more since we are so
short-staffed, and I believe that the salary increases have gone a long
way in telling our employees we value their service to our students and
keeping productivity high,” Silverthorn said.

Ross said the university has been working on reducing budgets.
Salary agreements were already in place before budget cuts were made.

The FA’s contract expires June 30 and officials and union
representatives will be meeting soon to negotiate next year’s contract
amid a $12 million to $15 million projected deficit.

In the meantime, the university is keeping tight-lipped on salary
levels for staff members.

“Right now we are not announcing salary increases for non-bargaining
groups,” Kent said.