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Media Relations

Bloomington Herald-Times Articles

March 18, 2008

Indiana University trustees
IU plans 3.5% raises for union workers
Faculty, staff raises to vary, based on merit
By James Boyd
March 18, 2008

Union employees at Indiana University will likely see around a 3.5 percent pay raise for the 2008-09 fiscal year, according to budget plans presented to the Board of Trustees Monday.

At a special meeting on the IUPUI campus, the trustees were given a financial picture of the university, enrollment projections for the fall semester, and the likely raise amounts for contractual employees.

Though the university's official budget won't be presented until the trustees' May meetings, IU vice president and chief financial officer Neil Theobald outlined the plans for them and for IU President Michael McRobbie.

Employees who fall under a collective bargaining agreement will likely get a 3.5 percent increase, but the unions have a right to negotiate how that pool increase is distributed. That figure could change, but that's the framework budget planners have begun working with.

Faculty and staff members will see their potential raises based on merit.

"Generally, we've set a number we expected from units to increase their salaries," Theobald said. "Last year we moved away from a number to more of a relationship between the increases in faculty salaries and the staff salary increases. For this year, we're moving away from that constraint. We're asking, 'What are you trying to accomplish in your salary setting?'"

That means no across-the-board salary hikes for staff members, but rather merit-based raises for those who excel.

Theobald said individual department heads know how best to reward their star employees. "They know who in their own shop should receive larger and smaller salary increases," he said. "Within our university, there's a lot of nonfaculty members that are absolutely critical to our success. We want the focus again to be on our faculty, but also on those critical staff members we have."

CWA Local 4370 President Peter Kaczmarczyk said he hadn't yet heard the 3.5 percent figure for union employees, but wasn't surprised by the figure.

"We have a bargaining session (today)," he said. "They might give us an official heads-up then."

Kaczmarczyk said while the 3.5 percent number is higher than in years past, he would've liked to have heard a bigger number.

"It's an improvement over the last few years, but I wouldn't call it good," he said. "It's certainly not going to keep up with the rising expenses, especially when you think about fuel and rising housing expenses. It's better than what we've had recently, but I'm still disappointed by that amount. I'd been hoping for more."

Trustee Pat Shoulders said that with government funding continuing to dwindle, the university has no choice but to continue to look to tuition and student fee increases.

"To pay our workers a living wage, we have no other alternative," Shoulders said. "Just to tread water we have to increase student tuition."

Theobald said the university is becoming less and less like a public institution in terms of funding issues.

"Financially, we're becoming more like a private university," he said. "As (our) costs grow, and with state support not growing as fast, we're depending more on tuition revenue."

Despite rising costs, especially in health care, trustee Tom Reilly Jr. said IU was in a good financial position.

"IU is not in any difficulty," he said. "The economic conditions and financial markets are very difficult. There are lots of ways it could eventually impact IU. Just this last weekend, the failure of a major bank and the way the Fed(eral Reserve) acted is a sign there's trouble."

Reilly credited IU's financial staff and former trustees with leaving the university in good financial shape.

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