June 1, 2001
Contact: Elizabeth Conlisk (614) 292-3040
OSU faculty, staff raises to be uniform flat amount
Minimal pay increase due to tight state budget
COLUMBUS – Ohio State President William E. Kirwan told trustees today (6/1) that an unrelenting series of setbacks during the budget process, resulting in essentially no increase in state funding, will hurt the university’s ability to increase faculty and staff compensation in a meaningful way.
Instead, Kirwan said, the university will provide a uniform flat dollar increase of approximately $395 to base salaries of full-time employees whose performance meets expectations. The goal is to offset increases in health care, insurance premiums and parking fees.
“Rarely, if ever, have I seen such a rapid and dramatic reversal of an institution’s fiscal fortune as that which has occurred over the past several months,” Kirwan said. “The Ohio Plan…gone. Increments to the Research Challenge and Success Challenge…gone. Additional support of the state’s share of instruction…gone.”
No one denies that the governor and the legislature face a formidable challenge in dealing with the DeRolph mandate, the declining economy and the Medicaid budget shortfall, Kirwan said. “The net effect, however, is that in terms of state priorities, higher education has become the source for other fiscal needs and shortfalls in the state budget.
“What is difficult to understand is how, in the information age, our state can continue to place such a low priority on higher education funding. How do our leaders expect Ohio to reverse its flagging economic fortunes?” Kirwan said.
Executive Vice President and Provost Edward J. Ray agreed. “While it is our desire to give faculty and staff raises on a par with our benchmark institutions, the state budget allocation for higher education for the 2002-03 biennium will not allow us to do more than a minimal increase.”
Ray and William J. Shkurti, senior vice president for business and finance, provided Ohio State trustees with an overview of compensation issues for faculty, staff and graduate associates.
The $395 increase will be an adjustment in annual salary for all regular faculty and staff with a 75 percent to 100 percent appointment whose performance is satisfactory or better. Faculty and staff employed at 50 percent to 74 percent time will receive an annual increase of approximately $270.
The $395 figure was derived by determining the typical cost of annual increases this year in health care and parking fees for faculty and staff enrolled in the PrimeCare health plan with family coverage.
As previously announced, the university will still provide a one-time cash credit this year for half of the PrimeCare plan premium increase to faculty and staff who earn $30,000 or less as of July 1, 2001. The premium credit will be $50 for single coverage and $156 for family coverage.
The guidelines presented to the trustees also allow the University Medical Center flexibility to meet market demands unique to its market with self-generated funds. The guidelines exclude 3,300 Medical Center employees and another 1,800 employees covered separately under collective bargaining contracts.
Several of the guidelines presented concern graduate associates. The university will begin providing $15 per month toward student health insurance for graduate associates in autumn quarter 2001. The increase is the first in a three-year plan that will reach a total benefit subsidy of $50 per month.
“We were among only three of 14 comparison institutions that did not provide any medical benefit subsidy to graduate associates,” Ray said.
Graduate associate stipends also will increase, by $10 per month, and the minimum stipend will be raised to $900 per month, also effective in autumn quarter.
In addition to a 30 percent increase in the university’s share of faculty and staff health insurance, the university’s general funds budget for fiscal year 2002 is supporting cost increases for student financial aid and improving the undergraduate student experience, and for soaring natural gas and oil fuel costs. Combined, these costs are the equivalent to the expense of a 4.8 percent compensation increase, Ray said.
In October, President William E. Kirwan will report to the Board of Trustees on a plan for restoring faculty and staff salaries over a period of three or four years to the average market level of our benchmark peer institutions, with the first step taken in fiscal year 2003.
The market for fiscal year 2001-02 is expected to increase by approximately 4 percent.
On average, Ohio State faculty and staff salary increases over the last three years have been trailing the market, Ray said. Faculty salaries are ranked eighth out of 10 benchmark institutions, and 13 of the University’s 17 colleges are below the market for faculty salaries. The College of Medicine and Public Health is not included in this comparison due to differing compensation practices among institutions.
Trustees renewed the student health insurance program with Koster Insurance Agency, and respective coverage with the Vision Service Plan and Delta Dental of Ohio effective autumn 2001. Changes to the plan include: improving the pharmacy benefit by allowing dependents (spouse & children) to have prescription drugs filled at the Student Health Center under the current insured benefit plan; adding periodontal services to the dental benefit; implementing enrollment eligibility requirements of six credit hours for undergraduate students and five credit hours for graduate/professional students; and modifying the plan year effective dates so that the Plan Year begins seven days prior to the start of Autumn 2001 and ends seven days prior to the start of the next school year.
The board approved a change in benefits and vendor for the university’s long-term disability income program outlined by Larry Lewellen, associate vice president for human resources. The new program, provided by the Hartford Life Insurance Company for a three-year period, will raise disability income replacement to 60 percent of base salary, instead of the current rate of 50 percent. Optional employee-purchased supplemental benefit premiums are reduced by an average of 19 percent, and the cost to the university per faculty/staff member per month is reduced from $7.76 to $7.26. through the new program.
Learning Technology fees continued
Trustees approved the continuation of learning technology fees in the Fisher College of Business, the colleges of Nursing and Engineering and the School of Public Policy and Management. All such fees will be reviewed by the Provost’s Oversight Committee on Learning Technology Fees and are subject to annual approval by the Board of Trustees until the fee is eliminated or replaced by a university-wide learning technology fee.
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