Pay boost for faculty, staff a future possibility
Wednesday, September 28, 2011 at 11:33AM By Jonathan McFadden
mcfaddenj@mytjnow.com
University full time faculty and staff can still hold out hopes for a pay raise if a salary study determines salary increases plausible in the next few months.
During his opening address to faculty and staff on Aug. 17, President Anthony DiGiorgio told university employees that a salary study is underway to discern what gaps in compensation may have resulted from the Recession.
Upon the study’s completion, university leaders will be able to see if any salary improvements can be made in light of economic recovery, said Rebecca Masters, assistant to the president for public affairs.
Masters said universities have had three general ways of dealing with compensation loss:
- Layoffs and hiring freezes
- Increasing class sizes/overall enrollment
- Non-personnel administrative cost-savings, which include energy savings or relying more on online materials rather than printed publications
Winthrop opted to use option three in order to maintain the university’s renown personal student experience and ensure that Winthrop would have the kind of facilities in place to “accommodate incremental student body growth,” Masters said.
Since the Recession began, there have been no mandated layoffs of full time faculty/staff, Masters said.
“...And there have been no headlines about Winthrop students being assigned three or four to a room meant for two occupants simply as a means of bringing in additional revenue,”she said.
With that being the case, the university doesn’t have any excess revenue in its coffers to offer bonuses to full-time employees, Masters said.
Once the salary study is completed, student-population growth numbers have been weighed and the economy “hopefully” improves over time, Masters said the university will investigate awarding merit-based salary improvements for those “who have helped the university community weather these challenging times.”
Earlier this month, the University of South Carolina announced that faculty and staff members who make below $100,000 are poised to receive a 1.5 percent bonus in late October.
