Colleagues:

Although the state budget for the coming academic year will not become official until the Board of Regents approves it in June, I wish to announce how the College intends to handle merit salary increases for faculty and professional staff. As you know, the Legislature did not award any funds for merit salary increases this year. However, the University plans to fund a modest salary increase using internal funds.

Faculty

Present plans call for a 2% salary increase to be awarded to all faculty judged to be meritorious. This will be handled as either a 0% merit increase for those judged to be non-meritorious or 2% for those judged to be meritorious as stated above. There are no funds for additional faculty salary merit this year. The College will not retain unused state salary increase funds for those faculty judged to be non-meritorious unless the funds are used for a retention situation. Salary increases will take effect on either July 1, 2004 or September 16, 2004. All faculty, regardless of source of funding, are subject to these procedures. Non-state funded faculty must ensure that their funding sources are sufficient to cover all salary increases. Chair Gustafson will forward all merit increases to the Dean for final review and approval by June 4, 2004.

Professional Staff

The CFR policy for merit salary increases for professional staff was distributed on February 11, 2003 and, with few changes, remains operative. Like the faculty, plans call for a 2% salary increase to be awarded to all professional staff judged to be meritorious. Only professional staff who have been permanently employed by the College for at least six months and who have not had an in-grade salary increase within the last six months (on or after January 1, 2004), will be eligible for this raise. This will be handled as either a 0% merit increase for those judged to be non-meritorious or 2% for those judged to be meritorious following the faculty merit raise policy above. The College will retain unused salary increase funds for those professional staff judged to be non-meritorious. These funds may be used for retention situations or additional merit for those judged to be highly meritorious. Salary increases will take effect on July 1, 2004. All professional staff, regardless of source of funding, are subject to these procedures. Non-state funded professional staff must ensure that their funding sources are sufficient to cover all salary increases. Exceptions to this policy are spelled out on the web site referenced above.

Supervisors should forward a paragraph supporting recommended merit allocations for each professional staff employee supervised to Alice Meyer by May 21, 2004, for the Dean's final approval. Recommendations for increases in excess of 2% must be justified and documented as specified in the Professional Staff Salary Increase Policy at the web site above, and accompanied by a specific budget source under the supervisor's control in the event that merit pool money is not available.

Unfortunately, the state budget for the next academic year does not permit a merit salary increase for our classified staff. Further, there is nothing that we can do about this unfortunate situation until the Legislature takes action.