Salary Policy Proposal: FAQ

This FAQ list assumes that you are familiar with the basic outline of the salary policy proposal. For a description of the proposal, see this document, and for the actual amendments to the faculty code, see this.

This document was prepared by Jack Lee. Updated April 13, 2016.

(NEW) Recent Changes to the Proposal

Tiers

Collegial Evaluations

Finances

Compression and Inequities

Market Adjustments and Variable Adjustments

Comparisons with Provisions of the Old Salary System

The Transition Plan

(NEW) Recent Changes to the Proposal

What are "opt-outs," "customizations," and "off-ramps"? Why do we need all of these options?

These terms are often confused. None of them are official terms in the faculty code; instead, they are used informally to refer to various options that are spelled out in the code:

Opt-out refers to the ability of a college, school, or campus, by majority vote of its faculty, to choose not to implement the tier portion (but only the tier portion) of the new salary policy. If a college chooses to opt out of tiers, then its salary policy will be goverened by the remaining parts of the policy: 12% promotion raises (replacing 7.5%), the CPI-based market ajustments (replacing the 2% "regular merit"), and variable adjustments (replacing "additional merit" and "unit adjustments," but much more flexible). So over the long term, even those colleges that opt out will have a better policy to work with than the current one

Customizations are options for colleges to change the percentages for tier raises and/or market adjustments. The default formulas will be set by the president in an executive order, but in some colleges these defaults might be financially unfeasible. A college, school, or campus can adopt different formulas by vote of its faculty. The executive order will establish limits for how low or how high these customizations can go: tier raises must be between 30% and 150% of university defaults, and market adjustments must be between 30% and 100% of the defaults.

Off-ramps are the emergency exits for the salary policy, and are expected to be invoked only in times of severe financial stress (such as the 2008 Great Recession). These provisions of the code allow the president, after consultation with SCPB and the Faculty Senate, to temporarily reduce the sizes of raises under the policy, or to postpone the raises associated with tier advancements.

Why would a college, school, or campus opt out of tiers?

The designers of the salary policy do not feel it should ever be necessary to opt out of tiers, because the opportunities for customization of tier raises and market adjustments should allow every unit on campus to give raises that are appropriate for their field and financial conditions. But if the faculty of a college, school, or campus are convinced that their salary system would function better without the tier portion of the policy, they have the option to opt out of tiers.
Is Arts & Sciences the only college that wants this policy?

Some people have been claiming that "most faculty do not want tiers," or that "all colleges except Arts & Sciences will opt out of tiers." There is no evidence to support this. The people who are claiming this seem to have been listening mostly to deans. It's true that the A&S dean is the only dean who has publicly said he want tiers for his college. Because a major purpose of the proposed salary policy is to shift a small but significant portion of authority over faculty salaries from the provost and deans to the faculty, this is understandable. However, the new "opt-out" provision that has been added to the proposal gives faculty in each college the opportunity to opt out by a majority vote. We have plenty of anecdotal evidence to suggest that there are lots of faculty members in colleges other than A&S who believe strongly that this salary policy, including the tiers, is necessary for them. But these are just anecdotes. The only way to know for sure is to send the proposal out for a faculty vote. If it's true that most faculty members don't want tiers, then the policy will be voted down.

What else has been changed since the December 3 Faculty Senate vote?

In addition to the "opt-out" provision for tiers, the other major change is that the language describing the uses of Variable Adjustments has been broadened to make clear that they can also be used as one tool for rewarding performance, and the process for allocating variable adjustments has been strengthened to ensure that faculty have at least as much protection under this new policy as they have under the existing policy for distributing merit raises. This will be particularly important in colleges that decide to opt out of tiers, but it will also provide important protection to all faculty because variable adjustments will probably be used in all colleges, at least some of the time.

Tiers

Which faculty titles will be eligible for tier advancements?

The following faculty titles will be tier eligible: Tenure track Professor (Assistant/Associate/Full); Research Professor (Assistant/Associate/Full); Professor WOT (Assistant/Associate/Full); or one of the following ranks and titles if eligible for multi-year appointments (whether or not the individual's current appointment is multi-year): Full-time Lecturer, Full-time Senior Lecturer, Principal Lecturer, Artist in Residence, or Senior Artist in Residence. The following faculty titles will not be tier-eligible: all Acting, Visiting, Affiliate, and Associate faculty; Emeritus or retired faculty; Clinical faculty other than Dental Pathway; Research Associate; Teaching Associate; Instructor; part-time or noncompetitively hired Lecturers; Residents; Fellows and Senior Fellows.

Will tier advancements be like promotions, requiring higher and higher levels of achievement and greater responsibilities?

No, the proposal is that a tier advancement (with the exception of Professor 7) will represent continuing excellent performance, commensurate with the expectations for faculty members with a given rank and title in a given field. As soon as your accomplishments since the most recent previous appointment, promotion, or tier advancement are commensurate with those of a typical UW faculty member in the field over the course of about four years, you will probably be awarded a tier advancement.

Do tier advancements require outside letters?

No: evaluation for tier advancement (except Professor 7) is conducted entirely by departmental colleagues, with oversight by the dean or chancellor and the elected faculty council. (On the other hand, rank promotions, such as from Assistant Professor to Associate Professor, will require outside letters as they always have.)

How is Professor Tier 7 special, and why?

Advancement to Professor 7 requires a higher bar: It’s based on the candidate’s entire record, requires outside letters, and represents exceptional scholarly distinction. It will come with a special designation of “Eminent Professor.” This is partly to provide additional motivation and reward for exceptionally high achievement, and partly to help “flatten out” the salary curve at the high end, by somewhat reducing the number of faculty members who advance to the highest Professor tiers. This flattening phenomenon is seen at peer institutions and is important for the affordability of the proposed system.

How will tier advancements work for lecturers?

The proposal is that all full-time lecturers who were hired based on a competitive search will be eligible for tier advancements, with advancements expected approximately every four years on average like other faculty members. This means that tier advancements need not coincide with reappointments; but departments might begin to synchronize reappointments with tier advancements.

How will tier advancements work for assistant professors?

Because the code places strict time requirements on assistant professor appointments, tier advancements for assistant professors are treated differently from all others. An initial assistant professor appointment will ordinarily be at Tier 1, and then the advancement to Tier 2 will come at the same time as the beginning of the second three-year appointment (if it is granted).

Will each faculty member get a tier advancement automatically every four years?

No, tier advancements are not automatic; they’re based on performance. Faculty members who are performing exceptionally well can be expected to get tier advancements faster (sometimes much faster) than every four years; those whose performance has slacked off will have to wait longer than four years; and in extreme cases, a faculty member might “stall out” and not receive any more tier advancements. A reasonable expectation might be that perhaps 60% of all faculty members will receive a tier advancement after four years, with about 20% advancing faster and 20% advancing slower. But this will depend on the actual performance evaluations carried out by faculty.

How will the salaries at different tiers be determined?

There will be no set salaries associated with tiers. Instead each tier advancement comes with a raise based on the faculty member’s current salary. By default, this will be an 8% raise for those whose salaries are below the overall UW full professor average, and 8% of that average for those above. (But if market conditions warrant, the formula can be changed for a particular campus, college, school, or department, by vote of the college faculty and with permission of the provost.)

How does this tier proposal compare to the University of California’s step system?

There are some similarities with the UC system: for example, tier advancements are determined internally by departments and do not require outside letters; there is one tier at the upper end of the full professor rank that requires outside letters. (In fact, the UC system provided the initial inspiration for our proposal.) However, this proposal differs in two extremely important ways. First, we are proposing tier advancements every four years on average (compared to approximately every 3 years in the UC system), to decrease the burden on departments, schools, and colleges. Second, instead of tying each tier to a specific salary (which makes it very difficult for the UC system to adapt to different market conditions in all of its various departments and campuses), we designed tier raises to be based on the faculty member’s current salary. We think this scheme will retain many of the advantages of the UC system while eliminating its most glaring problems.

Will tier raises be canceled if there’s another financial crisis?

The proposal contains a provision for tier raises to be delayed in times of severe financial crisis, but not canceled. During the crisis, departments can go ahead as usual awarding tier advances to faculty members, but the accompanying raises would be delayed. Once the crisis is over, those who had received tier advancements during the crisis would get their tier raises, but not retroactively. We expect that this would not happen except in the most extreme crisis situation. For example, the University of California system, which suffered a worse budget crisis in 2008-9 than UW, continued to give its analogous “step raises” throughout the crisis.

What happens if someone “runs out” of tiers at their rank?

If a person advances very quickly through the tiers at their rank, there is a provision for the department, with provost’s permission, to add one or more additional tiers for that person. This might be used, for example, to reward an Associate Professor who has advanced to Tier 3, and, for whatever reason, is unlikely to complete the particular requirements for promotion to Professor (such as a second book). If this individual continues to provide exemplary teaching and service to the department, the department may wish to reward him or her with an advancement to Associate Professor 4 or higher. Similarly, a truly stellar lecturer who has already advanced to Principal Lecturer 6 and still has a number of years to go before retiring might be rewarded with an advance to Tier 7 or higher.

Does this system impose a cap on salaries?

No. The only “cap” is on the size of tier raises for those whose salaries are above the UW average full professor salary. And this can be changed for a particular college, or for some departments in a college, by a vote of the college faculty (subject to approval by the provost).

Won’t the cap on tier raises be, in effect, a penalty for those in highly paid departments?

Not at all. We designed the tier-raise formula to match, as closely as possible, the pattern of career salary progression that we see at our peer institutions. In the most highly paid departments, both at UW and at peers, salaries typically start much higher than the UW average, but then they rise much more slowly than average after that. If we had mandated 8% raises for all faculty members in all departments, it would have forced many departments with highly paid faculty to raise their salaries well beyond those of their peers, and would not have been affordable. That said, if the default raise formula (8% capped at 8% of the UW average) turns out to be inappropriate for a particular department’s market conditions, the college faculty can (with provost’s permission) change the formula.

If I’m on a 12-month appointment, will my tier raises be capped by the average 9-month salary?

No. The cap on tier raises is pro-rated for the number of months of your appointment.

What if the tier-raise formula results in raises that are too small or too large compared to peers in my field?

Our analysis shows that the default tier raise formula, if applied consistently over time along with the proposed market adjustments and variable adjustments, should do a good job of reproducing the average career salary profile seen at our Global Challenge State peers in a wide variety of departments. But if an analysis of peer salaries in a particular field demonstrates that the default tier-raise formula would result in UW salaries that are either consistently lower than those of peers (and thus not sufficiently competitive), or consistenly higher than those of peers (and thus unaffordable), your college faculty can vote to change the tier raise formula and/or the market adjustment formula for a particular campus, college, school, or department, with permission of the provost. We expect that there might be a small number of units in the university that decide to opt for such a modification.

Collegial Evaluations

Won’t the required collegial evaluations introduce a huge new workload?

The current faculty code stipulates that all faculty members are to be "reviewed annually by their colleagues." The new proposal reduces that requirement to approximately every four years on average. For those departments that are carrying out the current code requirements, the new system should actually require somewhat less work. But we realize that for many departments, the new collegial evaluations might require more work on the part of faculty and staff, because more will be at stake. We want the new system to be a true meritocracy, with tier advancements based on a serious evaluation of a faculty member’s scholarly work, and we feel that such evaluations should be entrusted to faculty colleagues, not only to chairs and deans. This will require an investment of some time and effort, but the advantages should be worth the effort.

How will the collegial evaluation process work in practice?

Here’s how we expect it to play out in most departments:

  1. Each year, every faculty member submits an annual activity report (as under the current code).
  2. If appropriate, the chair (or dean in an undepartmentalized college) meets with the individual faculty member for a planning conference. When is appropriate? This will happen every year for assistant profs and lecturers; every two years for associate profs and senior lecturers; and every four years (changed from three in the old code) for profs and principal lecturers. One purpose of this meeting is to discuss when would be an appropriate time for the next collegial evaluation.
  3. After such a conference, if either the chair or the individual requests it, or if it has been five years since the last collegial evaluation, or if the individual is not tenure-track and up for reappointment, then the individual’s case goes forward to a collegial evaluation.
  4. In most departments, the initial evaluation will be carried out by a committee designated by the faculty for this purpose (though this is not required). The committee will examine the person’s record, with special emphasis on accomplishments since the last appointment, promotion, or tier advancement, and recommend whether this is an appropriate time for tier advancement or not. Alternatively, the committee can recommend the initiation of the promotion process, or a finding of “unsatisfactory performance.”
  5. The committee’s recommendations are forwarded to the appropriate department members for a vote. Everyone’s recommendation is voted on by voting members of the department who are superior in rank; in addition, professors and principal lecturers are voted on by those equal in rank.
  6. The department’s recommendations, together with the chair’s own recommendation, are forwarded to the dean.
  7. In consultation with the elected faculty council, the dean decides which of the tier advancements to approve. We expect that for people who are “on schedule” (four years since the last tier advancement), the evaluation of faculty records will be much less onerous than promotion evaluations — just an opportunity for basic quality control.

Why do we have to continue to submit annual activity reports, when collegial evaluations will only happen every few years?

An important part of the process is a decision about which faculty members should be called in for early chair conferences, for example because it might be appropriate to consider them for early tier advancement. That decision has to be based on some evidence, and the annual report will provide that evidence. A faculty member can, of course, request an early conference on his or her own, but we did not want to put the entire burden of deciding about early consideration on the individual.

Will faculty members be willing to make serious judgments about the quality of their colleagues’ work?

Faculty members in many departments have been doing just that, in compliance with the current code. For some other departments, it may require a cultural change for faculty members to get used to taking the evaluative responsibility seriously. We hope that the advantages of having tier advancements in the hands of faculty instead of just chairs and deans will be sufficient motivation for departments to develop a culture that takes these evaluations seriously.

Finances

Can we afford this salary policy?

In a word, yes. Modeling by the salary policy working group, the University Office of Planning and Budgeting, and the School of Medicine Business Office has led all three bodies to the same conclusion: The mandated parts of the proposed policy will not cost any more than the university would be spending under the current salary policy. Of course, if we want to make serious inroads on closing the gap between UW faculty salaries and those of our peers, we will need to find a way to put more money into the salary system than we have been doing; but that would be true whether we adopt the proposed policy, stay with the old one, or try something altogether different.

Without additional money coming to the university from the state or tuition, how can this new salary policy help?

The basic philosophy of this proposal is that the mandated raises for continuing faculty (12% promotion raises, tier raises, and CPI-based market adjustments) will add up to more than the mandated raises under the current system (7.5% promotion raises, 2% “regular merit,” plus sporadic allocations of “additional merit”), and this mandate will push campuses, schools, and colleges to place a higher priority on continuing faculty raises than they currently do. For many years, there has been enough money being injected into the salary system each year to keep up with peers, but far too much of it has been distributed through nontransparent retention raises. This policy is designed to shift some of the available funds from the retention system into regular raises for continuing faculty.

How will the policy work for faculty members who are supported entirely or mostly on grants or clinical revenues?

The policy itself is the same for all faculty in tier-eligible ranks, regardless of their funding sources. The market adjustments, promotion raises, and tier raises would apply to each individual’s base salary, including all sources. (But it wouldn’t apply to one-time bonus payments such as are sometimes awarded for clinical performance.) If a raise is awarded to a person whose grant does not contain sufficient funds to cover it, then a solution will have to be negotiated with the department, just as under the current system. We expect that after this system has been in place for a while, grant applications will routinely include increases to cover anticipated market and tier raises.

What will happen to my college in a year when we have few retirements and our ABB funding is too low to cover tier raises and market adjustments?

Just as under the current system, the main responsibility for funding centrally mandated raises will rest with the college, school, or campus. After the new system has been in place for a while, we expect that colleges that have unusually large numbers of retirements in a given year will “bank” the savings in anticipation of years when the retirement numbers are low (good budgeting practice in any case). And the provost and Office of Planning and Budgeting have expressed an intention to set up a central “risk pool” that can be used to provide temporary funding for units that have trouble meeting the mandated raises due to demographic fluctuations.

What will happen when there is a severe financial crisis like the 2008-2009 recession?

Each of the provisions of the proposed policy has an “off-ramp” that can be invoked in time of crisis. In a severe financial crisis, the following adjustments can be made, probably (but not necessarily) in this order:

  1. Variable adjustments would probably be eliminated first. Since these are controlled by individual campuses, schools, and colleges, there is no special procedure that needs to be followed to reduce or eliminate them, other than consultation with the elected faculty council.
  2. Next, if things get really bad (as they did in 2008-2009), the market adjustment would probably be reduced or eliminated temporarily. This will require the president or provost to consult with the Senate Committee on Planning and Budgeting, to explain the reasons for the reduction to the faculty senate, and provide the faculty with time to respond.
  3. In very extreme circumstances, our proposal stipulates that the tier raises could be delayed, but not canceled. In such a crisis, departments would award tier advances to faculty members as usual, but the accompanying raises would be delayed. Once the crisis is over, those who had received tier advancements during the crisis would get their tier raises, but not retroactively. Note that University of California system, which suffered a worse budget crisis in 2008-9 than UW, continued to give its analogous “step raises” throughout the crisis.
  4. Finally, if things got so bad that the above measures were not enough, the promotion raises could also be delayed. But we do not think this would ever happen. Note that promotion raises continued to be awarded even in the depths of the 2008-9 financial crisis.

Can’t the administration or the regents simply cancel the proposed raises if they wish?

Under state law, the regents have full control of the university, and the president is authorized to act for the regents in most issues regarding the actual governing of the university. Thus the regents or the president may, if they deem it necessary, modify or cancel any aspect of this or any other salary policy. However, we have tried to design the policy so that any such modification or cancellation needs to go through a transparent process with plenty of consultation with faculty. We believe that an administrative decision to cancel raises in the face of strong opposition from the faculty would carry a heavy political cost, so the administration will have a strong motivation to negotiate a response that the faculty consider appropriate. It’s not an absolute guarantee, but we believe this is the best protection we can have under the existing governance structure of the university.

Compression and Inequities

Will the proposed system correct compression problems for current senior faculty members?

Certainly not right away, and for faculty members nearing retirement perhaps not at all. The existing compression problems in many schools and colleges are so extensive that correcting them all would require a huge infusion of funds that we are unlikely to have any time soon. We have tried to design a transition process that will not make existing compression problems any worse. Once the new salary system is in place, there will be much better tools for departments to use to correct existing compression problems (mainly rapid tier advancements and variable adjustments). Most faculty members suffering from compression should see noticeably better salary advancement under the proposed system than they would be likely to see under the current system. And one of the main purposes of the new system is to avoid recreating compression problems in the next generation of faculty members.

Will the proposed system correct current inequities based on gender, race, etc.?

Just as with compression problems, the new system will not fix any inequities right away. But it won’t make them worse, and it should give departments much more flexible tools to address inequities.

Why should we try to bring salaries closer to those of peers?

Despite the facts that Seattle is a wonderful place to live and the UW is an inspiring place to work, we still have to compete with our peer universities when we hire new faculty members. If we can’t offer entering salaries that are at least in the ballpark with what peers are offering, we lose too many of our best candidates. And even if we offer competitive entry salaries, when UW’s career salary progression is so much slower than at peers, the word quickly gets out that you might start with a good salary at UW, but you will fall farther and farther behind the longer you stay here. This gets in the way of recruiting the best young faculty members. Once people are here, they frequently perceive that the only way to get a reasonable raise is to play the “outside offer game,” which in turn leads to declining morale and increasing resentment among those who choose not to play the game. And some of those who get nice outside offers decide to leave, thus depriving the UW of some of its best and brightest faculty members. If we wish to continue being a competitive, world-class research university, we have to find a way to compensate faculty members commensurately with our peers.

Market Adjustments and Variable Adjustments

Why are there CPI-based market adjustments? Why not have all raises connected with tier advancements, which are performance-based?

Basing some of the raises on inflation makes the system better able to adapt to changing economic conditions. If we tied all of the raises to the tier system, then in high inflation times the raises would be too small to keep up with peers, and in low inflation times they would be so large as to be unaffordable.

Will all faculty members get market adjustments every year?

In normal years, every faculty member will get a market adjustment except those whose performance was determined to be unsatisfactory in their last collegial evaluation. (But in times of severe economic stress, the market adjustments may be reduced or eliminated. See What will happen when there is a severe financial crisis like the 2008-2009 recession?)

What are the rules about how variable adjustments can be used?

Variable adjustments are designed to be as flexible as possible, subject to faculty approval of their use. They can be used to address equity or compression within a department; or to provide additional funds to allow a department to close its gap with peers (the way “unit adjustments” are used under the old system); or as an across-the-board raise to augment the market adjustment and keep up with peers; or for just about any other purpose that the faculty in a campus, college, school, or department deem appropriate. The only restrictions on their use are (a) a dean or chancellor must consult with the elected faculty council about how to distribute variable adjustment funds to different departments, and (b) the principles to be used for distribution of variable adjustment funds to individuals must be approved by the voting faculty in the unit.

Comparisons with Provisions of the Old Salary System

What is happening to the old system’s 2% “regular merit raises”?

Essentially, these are being replaced by the CPI-based market adjustments. In the old system, the “regular merit” raises were widely seen as de facto cost-of-living increases. This had a number of unfortunate effects, including undermining the integrity of the merit evaluation system, and inflexibility in the face of varying rates of inflation or financial crises. In the proposed new system, it is made clear from the start that the purpose of the market adjustments is to help salaries keep pace with economic inflation and peer salaries, separately from the performance-based tier and promotion raises.

What is happening to the old system’s “additional merit raises”?

These are being replaced by a combination of tier raises (which are purely performance-based) and variable adjustments (which can be used more flexibly to address inequities, compression, or market gaps, in addition to rewarding excellent performance).

What is happening to the old system’s “unit adjustments”?

These are replaced by variable adjustments, which are far more flexible and involve less red tape.

Will retention raises still be allowed under the proposed system?

Yes, the proposed new policy does not place any limits on retention raises, except to say that any retention raise should ordinarily be accompanied by one or more tier advances. We expect that there will still be a need for retention raises in response to actual outside offers, but we think these will become less frequent over time for two reasons: first, as UW faculty realize that the tier system provides them with a predictable and reliable path for career salary advancement, they will be less motivated to look for outside offers; and second, as the new salary system gradually chips away at our compression problems, other universities will be less likely to see UW faculty as “poachable.” On the other hand, we expect that preemptive retention raises should mostly disappear under the current system, because the same effect can be accomplished in a less arbitrary way with early tier advancements, perhaps even multiple tiers at once.

The Transition Plan

When will the proposed salary policy be voted on?

The policy will come to the Faculty Senate for a vote on December 3, 2015. Because it will be a change to the faculty code (Class A legislation), it will need to be voted on twice in two successive senate meetings, then be approved by the voting faculty, then be signed by the president. If all goes well, it should become part of the faculty code by the end of spring quarter 2016.

When will the new salary policy fully go into effect, if it is passed?

There will need to be a transition period before the new policy fully takes effect. Partly this is to allow the new HR/Payroll computer system to be retooled to take account of the new tier structure and collegial evaluations; and partly it is to allow departments to make initial assignments of tiers and mandatory review years. If, as we hope, the new salary policy becomes part of the code at the end of spring 2016, the president will declare a Transition Year, probably around 2017-18. The choice will depend partly on the HR/Payroll system rollout schedule, and partly on the financial resources available for transition raises. The new policy will go fully into effect at the end of the transition year.

How will the assignment of initial tiers affect current salaries?

It won’t. The assignment of an initial tier is meant simply to reflect, as accurately as possible, each faculty member’s seniority, accomplishments, and current salary.

What if I’m not happy with my initial tier?

The proposed transition will in many cases give you a choice of tiers. If your current salary is low compared to where it would probably be if the new system had been in effect for a long time (as will be the case with the great majority of faculty members), you will have a choice of initial tier within a range — the low end of the range is the tier that would correspond to your current salary, while the high end is the tier that would correspond to your seniority. Within that range, you should be able to find a tier that feels appropriate for you. On the other hand, if your salary is higher than it would probably have been under the new system, you’ll need to start at that higher tier, because it’s a more accurate reflection of the high salary you’ve been awarded by your department. Even in that situation, however, you will not be forced to start at the highest tier for your rank, or at Professor 6, so there will be at least one tier advancement available to you before running out of tiers or hitting the higher bar at Professor 7.

Will rank promotion raises suddenly jump from 7.5% to 12%? If so, won’t that motivate some faculty members to delay their promotions?

The transition plan currently calls for rank promotion raises to jump immediately to 9% as soon as the new policy is passed, and then to 12% at the end of the transition year. Thus delaying your promotion until the new policy goes fully into effect might get you a slightly higher raise, but in return for that you’d have to forgo one or more years of 9% raises. Better to go ahead and go for promotion as soon as you’re ready.

 

 

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