March 16, 2006
Members Present: Dan Alford, Richard Bautista, Janet Bush, Fran Emory, Marsha Fisher, Barbara Hatheway, Joey Horobetz, Zina Jemison, Charles Kellermann, Marjorie Kinnaman, Kim McManus, Maria Nieto-Shahsavarian, Irene Osterman, Bill Shannon, and Ruth Stanton.
Members Absent: David Babel, Myrtho Blanchard, Miguel Corrigan, Myles Embry, and Barbara Howard.
1. Call to Order: Fran Emory called the meeting to order at 2 p.m.
2. Approval of the Minutes: The minutes were approved as distributed.
3. Old Business:
A. Telecommuting Policy for Teaching Faculty: Dan Alford agreed that he would have a draft telecommuting policy for the Committee to consider at its next meeting.
B. Faculty Salary Study: Ruth Stanton and Alison Baker reported on the Faculty Salary Study and the meeting that was held on March 2. The meeting was not well attended, but there were a number of excellent questions. Professional faculty were particularly probing, pointing out that many of them have employment options outside academe, so that their salaries should be compared with those in federal government service, for example. President Templin wanted the faculty to understand that the approach was not one to find internal inequity and resolve it. Rather, the College is seeking data to support its contention that our faculty is seriously underpaid because our salaries are not competitive in the marketplace of our peers.
The first draft of the salary study has been delayed because the College’s work in other quarters defining our peer comparators had not been completed. The Segal Company now has a list of similarly sized urban community colleges to use in drawing comparisons, and we hope to have a first draft in early April.
Some preliminary concepts the analysts report are that other colleges have much wider salary ranges. The entry points may be similar, but the midpoints and the tops of the scales are considerably higher. Other institutions do not generally raise the bottom of the scale by the average increase as the VCCS does. This is a policy that tends to keep faculty in the bottom quarter of the range no matter how long they have been working at the college.
Members of the committee wanted to remind the administration that adjunct salaries must also go up.
C. KSA Increases: Janet Bush and Irene Osterman reported on their activities. They met yesterday with Myrtho Blanchard to discuss this, and they plan to have something for the Committee to consider at its next meeting. They see the issue as being part of an overall approach to “in-band adjustments,” as defined in the state’s Compensation Plan. The KSA part of the plan would require the creation of career paths within professional tracks with the educational component incorporated into the performance evaluation process. The possibility of KSA increases would encourage the establishment of job-related educational goals with a pre-determined expectation that the employee would be able to take on increased duties and responsibilities because of their educational attainment. The benefit would not only be to the employee, but also to the office and the college. The HR professional development staff would track employee progress toward the established goal. At the outset the supervisor and HR would agree on how much the salary increase would be, and that would take into consideration how much time and effort would go into the training/education and how much value the attainment of the goal was expected to bring to the unit.
D. The Timing of Faculty Overload Payments: Fran Emory and Joey Horobetz reported on their discussions on paying faculty with overloads earlier. They suggested the program would have the following aspects:
1) Faculty would apply for earlier pay.
2) To be eligible, faculty must be teaching a Spring Semester course load in which every course had a census date that falls on or before the 16-week semester census date. Faculty with dynamic session or second eight-week session calendars would not be eligible.
3) Payment for Fall Semester overload to eligible faculty would take place as soon as possible after the 16-week semester census date.
4) Spring Semester overloads, and the Fall Semester overloads of faculty not eligible for early payment, would be paid out as usual at the end of the Spring Semester.
It was moved and seconded that this plan be presented to Human Resources and Payroll for consideration and implementation. Approval was unanimous. Alison Baker said she would take the resolution to the two offices to see what can be done to implement it.
4. New Business:
A. Faculty Salary Increases: Alison Baker distributed materials related to the processes through which salary increases had been distributed in the past. For many years, while the salary increases allocated were at or near the cost of living, the salary increases were allocated by a formula that recognized performance ratings by a very small percentage increment. In the past two years, the administration has been able to add more to the salary increase pool, and last year the Committee recommended that any difference between the College’s average increase percentage and what was approved by the General Assembly be distributed in a way to address the demonstrated salary compression among the ranks.
The Committee then agreed to the following resolution:
1. The percentage increase approved by the General Assembly should be distributed according to the traditional formula that has been used over the past several years that takes into account the evaluation ratings of the faculty.
2. To the extent possible, teaching faculty, professional faculty, and administrative faculty should be eligible for the same average percentage salary increase.
3. To the extent the College is authorized and able to allocate additional resources to faculty salary increases, beyond that approved by the General Assembly, the College should continue to deal with salary compression among the ranks along the lines of the allocations made last year. If new data is available from the faculty salary study, that data should be used to inform the allocation process.
4. If meetings of the Personnel Services Committee and the College Senate cannot be called to discuss the Administration's salary increase plan, the President should meet with the chairs of those two groups to discuss the plan and to seek advice.
Fran Emory will pass this along to the College Senate and to the Academic Deans for their consideration.
B. Other Issues for Next Time: Fran asked the members about their understanding regarding their eligibility for reappointment to the committee. Several members were in the second year of their appointments, but only Joey Horobetz was certain that he had served four consecutive years, making him ineligible for appointment next year.
At the April meeting, members are asked to come prepared with agenda items for next year’s committee to consider.
5. Adjournment: The Committee adjourned at 3:45 p.m.