COLLEGE OF HEALTH SCIENCES
BUDGET COMMITTEE MEETING MINUTES
DATE: 7/31/06 PLACE: NURS 106 TIME 1000

PRESIDING: Jessica Dolecheck RECORDING Jane Burson

MEMBERS PRESENT: Judy Fellows, Norma Johnson, Sharon Chaney, Jay Hicks, Bret Bennett, Peggy Meredith, Jessica Dolecheck, Florencetta Gibson, Jan Corder, Paxton Oliver, Jane Burson, Beverly Jarrell, George Roberts, Michael Ramsey, Donna Eichhorn, Sandra Jones
MEMBERS ABSENT: Linda Sabin

TOPICS: Pay Plan

1. The meeting was called to order by Jessica Dolecheck.

2. Dr. Oliver gave a brief overview of the COHS Proposed Pay Raise Procedure. COHS received $78,000 for merit salary adjustments and $52,000 for equity salary adjustments for the college. Merit adjustments will be based on evaluations, rankings, and an algorithm. Evaluations completed in the Spring of 2006 will be used as the benchmark. Annual faculty evaluations, achievement of 80% of annual goals, and percent expectations on the matrix will give a weighted score. In each department, there will be a precertified pool of persons eligible for merit raises. One eligible person in each department will receive a 5% merit salary adjustment and a second eligible person will receive a 4% merit salary adjustment. Other eligible persons may receive a merit salary adjustment of 2.5% to 3%. To be eligible for merit salary adjustments the faculty person must have met a minimum of 80% of annual faculty goals and received a minimal rating of “Above Average” on the Evaluation Matrix.

Faculty eligible for equity must receive a minimal rating of “Meets expectations” or its equivalent. Equity adjustments will be determined by comparisons to Association of Schools of Allied Health Professionals (ASAHP) data, and American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) data, and when appropriate, internal departmental comparisons. CUPA data will not be used because delineation of disciplines is not available for most of our disciplines.

COHS will give merit and equity salary adjustments from the money designated for salary adjustments given to the college. No across the board salary adjustments will be given. Approximately 56 faculty members in the college are eligible for consideration for merit and/or equity salary adjustments.

To be eligible for a merit salary adjustment, the faculty person must meet 80% of annual goals. How to determine the meeting of 80% of the annual goals was discussed. How do we give faculty credit for doing the work to complete a goal, even though each faculty member will have different goals? For example, if one person has all goals in teaching and a different faculty has 80% teaching and has 20% in research and gets all data collected, but doesn't get the opportunity to complete the research due to an unexpected increase in teaching workload, should this person be penalized for not meeting 80% of goals. The consensus of the committee members is that faculty workload changes should be considered so that the faculty person is not penalized. Each faculty member should be mentored by their department head in establishment of goals. Department heads will be evaluated on how well they mentor faculty in establishment of goals.

The process will be establishing the percent of the evaluation matrix allocation for establishment of goals. Next, develop goals for the matrix items used. A person on tenure tract will need to establish goals to help toward reaching tenure.

Committee members will email Dr. Oliver with ideas regarding how to determine the meeting of 80% of goals.

3. The committee is charged with development of a COHS evaluation tool. Dr. Corder is collecting evaluation tools from the school and departments in the college as a guide for this project.

4. Next, Dr. Corder presented ideas on establishment of equity pay. Related to a question from the last meeting, Dr. Corder reported that the ASAHP reference salary was 12 months, and has been adjusted to 9 months when appropriate for comparison. This information is found in the examples.

The person who receives a merit adjustment will be compared to the salary of other faculty in the department. This person may then receive a smaller equity adjustment to bring salary to comparable range for department and compared to the reference salary. Salaries of other schools in the system will also be used for comparison.

The amount of $52,000 is available for equity adjustments. Approximately $22,000 will be used in nursing, $30,000 will be used in other schools. New floor for nursing is raised to $45,000. Some faculty may reach floor with merit increases and equity money may not be used. The market value for the disciplines in each school may be considered in the amount of equity adjustment.

Dr. Fellows suggested that faculty in departments who are loyal and hardworking and whose salaries are really low should have their salaries brought closer toward reference salaries. What percent below the reference salary can be used to determine how much to raise the salary? It was suggested that the amount of equity adjustment this year should focus on salaries that are significantly different from the reference salaries. Dr. Corder asked for suggestions to define “significant difference”. After discussion, Dr. Corder will develop some examples with some assumptions and send them out to the committee for comment.

After merit adjustments are calculated, then the difference will be calculated to determine the amount of the equity adjustment. It may be necessary to put either a percent or a dollar amount as the ceiling for equity adjustments to be given. The primary goal is to be objective in disbursement of equity salary adjustments.

Dr. Oliver will make revisions on the pay plan which were suggested by committee members. The entire pay plan will be presented to the COHS Faculty at the first meeting of the semester, Tuesday August 15 at 8:30 am.

5. A scheduled budget committee meeting is not calendared, but one may be needed on August 14, on the first day of faculty development week.


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