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Professional and administrative staff take a pay freeze to help the university

By Editorial Board on April 26, 2010 1:00 am in Editorial / 4 comments

 

The professional staff, administrative staff and senior officers at Central Michigan University will not receive raises for the 2010 – 2011 fiscal year.

The move is one meant to help soften the blow of impending cuts in state appropriations and increasing operating costs university-wide.

At a time when furloughs and budget cuts at businesses and state agencies are making the news, it’s good to see CMU take another route, at least for now.

The administration has a responsibility to make decisions that are the most fiscally sound for the university.

As such, senior leaders also must be willing to make concessions in the name of the institution they lead. Salary freezes may be one of the most effective ways that CMU can overcome budget problems.

The professional and administrative staff make up about 740 of the university’s employees. They will have to pay either 3.2 or 1.2 percent for the same benefits they had last year. In the end, these are small drawbacks that ensure people will keep their jobs.

No one likes to hear there won’t be any raises and that they’ll be paying more for the benefits they already had. Avoiding alternatives like layoffs and overcharging students on tuition however, should mean more than a few extra bucks— especially if students really are the top priority.

Considering too that these are the people that will make the decisions on what the university should slash from its budget, it only makes sense that they don’t give themselves raises. It would be hard for the staff to justify cutting even more computer lab hours or letting instructors go while fattening their own wallets.

Faculty members will soon begin negotiations with the university over a new contract. In the fall of 2008, negotiations between the university and the CMU Faculty Association did not go over smoothly and instructors threatened to strike when an agreement couldn’t be reached. This year, faculty will have to make concessions if they want to avoid layoffs and less resources for teaching.

Additionally, at a time when money is so tight all around, officials need to take care when choosing people for the university’s top positions. These are the people who receive the competitive high-end salaries that soak up a large part of the university’s finances. It’s important the right people are in these roles—those who will be the best stewards of CMU’s resources. Interims need to be faded out, but only after careful consideration of the best candidates.

Those who work for CMU should take notice of this salary freeze. Everyone at CMU—no matter what their rank, salary amount or tenure at the university—should be open-minded and willing to be a bit more flexible as the state pulls itself out of an economic depression.

A group effort to take less money from students says a lot about where the priorities lie.


 

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  • Scott

    No cost of living increase combined with an increase in the cost of benefits equals a pay cut, not a freeze.

  • Dale

    You're right Scott it does amount to a cut and probably not enough of one. It is good to see that Admin and Professional staff are willing to get out in front of the money issues and set an example. It's going to get worse before it gets better.

  • Nikki Sics

    Keep in mind that the professional and administrative staff (executive secretaries and entry-level jobs) have zero leverage. There's nothing student-first about their willingness to take a pay freeze. They just want to keep their jobs, since most will be on the chopping block when those 3/6/9% cuts come down. The senior officers, deans mostly, are pulling down six figures already and have job security. And they're not the people who will make decisions on cuts. They'll just hand off recommendations to the people with real power…you know, the one's getting $50000 raises.

    If you think this is going to do much to prevent layoffs, firings, and tuition increases, though, you're fooling yourselves. We're losing professors and replacing them with temps, who (as the other letter explains pretty plainly) work for peanuts with no job security. If the faculty make concessions, they're fools, too.

  • Vigilentviral

    No one is *willing* to take a pay cut—not when our President is payed over 100,000 more than his predecessor, Mike Rao, who was here for ten years. He also gets a “signing bonus” of over 40,000, even though his experience was being the Chief Financial Officer at CMU for many years and being the president of Alcorn for a year. Mike Rao had been an established president at a state college in Montana for several years. Remember that the president gets his house,utilities, car and gas paid for by the university. Plus he gets a furniture and clothing allowance for the first year. A President should lead by example. This is an example of CEO welfare for a state college that really can't afford it.
    So, yes, by all means, let us, who make under 45,000 a year take a sequence of cuts. Let's especially target the staff and adjuncts who make less than 30,000 a year. While the President and Provost draw huge salaries, and we give several Deans and associate Deans of our imaginary med school six figure salaries too. Where's *our* Tea Party? Talk about bloated government and administration. The idea that CMU's faculty and staff make big money is completely a myth—except at the school of business where the faculty salaries are so high that school can't support itself, unlike other departments who make a lot of money for the general fund. Anyone can go to the CMU library and request a document that will list all the salaries of all the faculty at CMU because it is a state university. It is a real eye-opener.