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September 14, 2000

How the salary policy played out in one department

George Sparling, an associate professor in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) mathematics department, received a positive performance evaluation for last year.

But his resulting 2.5 percent raise — 0.5 percent above the recommended percentage for satisfactory performance — was slightly below last year's 2.7 percent Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation rate.

"I think it's outrageous," Sparling said. "It isn't just that I'm losing ground to inflation, even though I received a so-called merit increase. It's that my overall compensation has gone down considerably because I was forced to change my health plan" on July 1, when Pitt's new health insurance contract with UPMC Health Plan took effect.

Despite average 8 percent hikes nationwide in employee health insurance this year, premiums paid by Pitt and its employees did not increase under the new contract. Even so, Sparling figures that he's paying $100 more per month to get the same level of family coverage he previously received through a Highmark plan. Under the University's new contract, Pitt dropped Highmark in favor of an exclusive agreement with UPMC.

"I believe that, taking into account inflation, my effective salary has gone down each year for the past four or five years," Sparling said.

Another math professor, speaking on condition of anonymity, said: "I received a very nice, positive letter from my chairperson, saying what good work I had done the previous year and telling me I was getting a 2.5 percent raise. I realized that doesn't even cover the cost of living" increase for last year.

The math department illustrates how Pitt's salary policy works at the unit level.

Of the 4.5 percent University-wide increase in the pool of money for salaries, 0.5 was allocated to the provost and the senior vice chancellor for Health Sciences to meet market and equity needs in targeted units.

Of the 4 percent salary budget increase allocated to FAS, arts and sciences Dean N. John Cooper distributed 3.7 percent to each FAS department. He withheld 0.3 percent to later meet special merit, equity and retention cases.

That left 3.7 percent for math chairperson John M. Chadam to distribute among his faculty. "Whatever I get from the dean on top of this 3.7 percent tends to be minuscule," Chadam said. "It's a token of appreciation for something wonderful that an individual faculty or staff member did the previous year."

Department chairs throughout the University were instructed to award 2 percent raises for satisfactory performance, with the remaining 1.7 percent for merit, market and equity increases.

But in the math department, the split worked out to 2.5 percent and 1.2 percent, in effect. That's because, according to the department's five-member, elected merit committee that reviews each faculty member's job performance, most faculty exceeded the department's standard for satisfactory performance.

Chadam noted: "Never, during this whole discussion of salaries — not in the documents from the dean, or in our evaluations of faculty or in the subsequent discussions of salary raises — was CPI mentioned. It's just not part of the equation."

— Bruce Steele

Filed under: Feature,Volume 33 Issue 2

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