University Times

Faculty Assembly on May 1 shot down a pro- posal aimed at closing the gap between faculty and administrative interpretations of Pitt's salary raise policy.

The proposal boiled down to changing one word of the policy — basing inflation raises on "meritorious" rather than (as currently stated) "satisfactory" job performance — but it released a torrent of talk about University budgeting and governance.

Almost since the day in 1994 that Pitt's administration adopted a Senate Council-endorsed salary policy, faculty and staff groups have disagreed with the administration over how the policy should be interpreted and implemented.

Conflict has centered on the question of "maintenance of real salary for satisfactory performance" — a phrase that policy drafters chose carefully because administrators and trustees were uncomfortable with automatic "cost of living" raises for merely competent employees.

But whether it's called "maintenance of real salary" or "cost of living raises," the salary policy's intention was the same: Except in years when salary increase funds are "severely constrained," the policy states, faculty and staff judged by their supervisors to have done their jobs well should get raises at least equal to the previous year's inflation rate.

In dividing Pitt salary raise funds during the last two years, however, Chancellor Mark Nordenberg has allocated lower-than-inflation salary maintenance increases for satisfactory performance. Nordenberg told Senate Council last year that he does not interpret the salary policy as giving priority to salary maintenance over the other components called for under the policy: merit, market and equity raises. Faculty members of Council disagreed.

In an attempt to avoid further polarization, the Senate's budget policies committee (BPC) proposed that maintenance raises should be awarded for "meritorious" rather than "satisfactory" performance. BPC defined meritorious performance for faculty as "meeting expectations for effective contribution to the missions of the faculty member's particular unit and of the University."

A BPC resolution, presented to Faculty Assembly, said the change would remove the false impression that administrators must give cost-of-living raises to people who don't really deserve them, leaving little money for merit increases for those who have earned them.

Employees judged to be "unsatisfactory" would have continued to get no raises, under BPC's plan. Those judged not unsatisfactory but less than "meritorious" would have received raises greater than zero but less than the percentage awarded for meritorious performance.

At its May 1 meeting, Faculty Assembly voted 17-11 (with two abstentions) against the proposal. Most members seemed to be convinced by arguments that Pitt's administration will interpret the salary policy however it likes, regardless of faculty input, and that the wording change would encourage a rich-get-richer system in which long-term employees get below-inflation raises for good work, while "star" professors and high-level staff reap big raises by threatening to leave for higher-paying jobs elsewhere.

"Basically, this proposal is playing word games," dental professor John Baker told Philip Wion, an English professor who chairs BPC and who championed the wording change. "Years ago, the administration wanted a merit-based salary policy. You're handing it to them."

James Holland, of psychology, said the administration sent the Senate a clear message two years ago when Chancellor Nordenberg approved salary maintenance raises at a scant 0.1 percent below the previous year's inflation rate. "What was really being said was, 'We don't want to follow the policy, even by accident,'" according to Holland.

Herbert Chesler, of economics, said Senate leaders should openly declare what they have always believed: that Pitt's top priority in awarding salary raises should be cost-of-living increases for continuing employees who do a good job. "Then we should say to the administration, 'Go find the money. That's what you get paid for.'"

Wion argued that BPC's proposal was based on practical politics. "Realistically, given the current levels of state funding and all of the demands for market and equity raises in addition to salary maintenance, the pool [of salary funds] is not going to be much above the cost of living in any given year," Wion said.

"The need for market raises, to retain as well as reward outstanding faculty and staff, really is there," he added. "Administrators like the provost and the deans see it daily, in ways that most of us don't."

Following the Faculty Assembly meeting, Wion confessed to feeling irritated by what he called some of his colleagues' predictable anti-administration comments.

"We need to get beyond the knee-jerk, us-versus-them reaction that administrators are one breed of creature and faculty and staff are another breed, and we have no sympathy with any of the dilemmas that a chair or dean or provost — or a chancellor, for that matter — has to deal with," Wion said.

On the other hand, administrators must realize that "you're sending a mixed message when you tell employees they are meritorious, and then turn around and give them a cut in real pay," Wion added. "It's very bad for morale."

Last year, among the 1,507 full-time Pitt continuing faculty outside the School of Medicine (medicine is not covered by the salary policy), 297 received raises lower than the previous year's inflation rate despite having been judged as meritorious, according to Pitt's Office of Institutional Research.

Although Assembly members rejected the BPC proposal, it remains on the agenda for the May 7 Senate Council meeting. There, Pitt senior administrators will have the opportunity to add their comments to the salary policy discussion.

"Depending partly on what's said at Senate Council on Monday," Wion said, "BPC may revisit the [salary policy] issue in the future."

* The proposal to modify the salary policy was a hard sell even to BPC. The committee approved the proposal by a 5-2 vote (with two abstentions), only after several BPC members criticized alleged bad faith and hypocrisy among administrators and trustees.

Sean Hughes, of education, was the proposal's main critic among BPC members. "How have the salary increases of senior administrators been in the last few years?" he asked, referring to the double-digit raises that trustees have approved for Pitt's chancellor, provost and others.

"It's irrelevant," replied Wion.

"No, it's not irrelevant," Hughes said. "Those are the people who are making the decisions about what the rest of the faculty are paid….The whole thing just seems so hypocritical."

Hughes and Wion also disagreed about giving supervisors the option of judging employees to be less than meritorious but not downright unsatisfactory.

"I'll grant you, it's splitting hairs," Wion conceded.

"It's like being a little bit pregnant," Hughes rejoined.

"Well, the way things currently are, it's all or nothing, unsatisfactory or satisfactory," Wion said.

"There's no reason it shouldn't be," Hughes insisted. "The problem is, supervisors will not rate people as being unsatisfactory, which probably means that neither the chancellor, the provost, deans nor department chairs are doing their jobs.

"If someone is unsatisfactory, get rid of them," Hughes said. "Now, it's very hard to do that — that's the story I've been hearing for the last 35 years. But it's not hard. You just say, 'Pack your bags and get the hell out of here.' Then [these fired employees] sue, so you go to court. After you win the first couple of cases, then the other people who are like that can no longer assume, 'Hell, I can swing it at this University until the next early retirement'" policy comes along.

BPC member Kim Sutton Tyrrell, of epidemiology, defended Wion's proposal. She said it would focus faculty and administrators "on the area where we're in agreement, maintenance of real salary for meritorious people."

"And all of those arguments that Sean raised are still there," Wion added. "But they've been there for six years, and they haven't changed the behavior of the people making the [salary] decisions. Nor are they likely to, in my judgment."

— Bruce Steele