FAYETTEVILLE : UA revises pay increase to merit only
Posted on Wednesday, May 14, 2008
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/adg/News/225679/
FAYETTEVILLE — The University of Arkansas has changed a preliminary plan to offer its classified employees a combination of cost-of-living and merit raises in the coming fiscal year.
Instead, those employees will get a chance at merit raises only, Fayetteville campus officials announced Tuesday evening.
Last Wednesday, UA announced it had made a major decision in the early stages of crafting the budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1: People would come ahead of most new programs because of the tight economy.
The original plan called for 2 percent cost-of-living raises for all classified university employees — those workers, generally in staff positions, whose pay scale and job descriptions are regulated by the state — as well as the possibility of merit raises that would be funded from a 1 percent pool.
The cost-of-living raises would have been a sure thing, but not the merit raises, which hinge on performance evaluations.
“This plan required a change in state personnel pay plan regulations, however, and that change was not approved by the state’s Office of Personnel Management,” UA officials said in a news release.
So UA officials now plan to craft a budget that will set aside a funding pool for classified workers’ merit raises. The pool will total 3 percent of the current salaries for classified employees.
“It’s possible someone could get less than 3 percent,” said UA spokesman Steve Voorhies, or that a person could get no raise. “But it’s also possible someone could get more than 3 percent, depending on how the performance evaluation goes.”
UA’s plans to set aside a 2 percent merit-raise pool for non-classified employees haven’t changed. Those employees — who have less-structured jobs and pay levels — include administrators, faculty, graduate students and some staff workers.
All together, the university employs about 850 faculty and about 2, 900 other workers, its chief spokesman, Tysen Kendig, said last week.