BANGOR, Maine — After a review of the University of Maine System’s $7 million in salary increases over the past seven years, the system’s human resources office and the chancellor said they are largely satisfied with the system’s compensation program but are suggesting a few changes.
The human resources office presented its report to a Human Resources and Labor Relations Committee of the UMS trustees Sunday afternoon. The report recommends some minor adjustments to the compensation program.
Chancellor James Page froze future discretionary pay increases pending a system review on March 22 after the Portland Press Herald reported that 44 University of Southern Maine employees received $242,000 in raises during a difficult fiscal year.
The system later released data that showed about $7 million in salary increases had been handed out over the past seven years systemwide.
The more than 1,000 raises ranged from 5 percent to 63 percent, and most were awarded under the Salaried Employee Compensation and Classification Program, which allows nonfaculty salaried employees in the system to have their positions reviewed to see if their workload warrants a higher pay rate.
There are 351 fewer full-time equivalent positions in the system than there were in 2007, according to Tracey Bigney, the system’s chief human resources officer. That means other employees have had to fill some of those gaps by moving to different positions or taking on more job duties.
Of the 1,019 raises, 22 percent were for more than 20 percent of the employee’s previous salary.
“This is a substantial increase by any measure, but appropriate for a significant increase in responsibilities and career progression,” the human resources report states.
Page said the investigation did reveal opportunities to make changes and clarify some of the system’s regulations on pay increases.
For example, the human resources report recommends that a pay increase due to promotion or reclassification of a salaried employee should be limited to a 15 percent increase per salary level jump or a 30 percent pay increase maximum if the employee jumps multiple pay levels. Any exceptions to that would require the approval of the chancellor or a designee.
Bigney said that policy adjustment could rein in the wide percentage variance between the raises.
Another recommendation in the report would require that upper-level university officials, usually individuals at the level of dean and higher, undergo a closer level of scrutiny when it comes to appointments, promotions and salary increases.
A higher level of review should also be applied when a raise is proposed for an employee who has received a raise within the past three years, the report argues. On the list, 28 employees had three or more pay increases during the seven-year period covered by the data. Two of them received four raises.
“While recognizing and rewarding employee initiative and performance, presidents must enforce a culture of accountability for salary increases,” the report states.
The human resources office also found a need to improve the coding in the payroll system so there are clear distinctions between the categories of increases — for example, whether a person received a raise because of an increase in duties at work or whether the salary was increased to make the person’s pay more equitable with similar positions.
Also during Sunday’s Human Resources and Labor Relations Committee meeting, the Associated Faculties of the Universities of Maine presented the results of a study conducted by JBL Associates Inc. that compared the compensation of Associated Faculties’ members to compensation of faculty members at “peer institutions” across the nation and in New England.
“We have gained a general sense that faculty compensation at UMS institutions trails the competitive marketplace where UMS institutions compete to attract and retain faculty members,” the study concluded.
Ron Mosley of the University of Maine at Machias, president of the Associated Faculties of the Universities of Maine; and James McClymer of the University of Maine in Orono, vice president of the group; presented data they argued contradicts a study conducted last year by Aon Hewitt, a human resources consulting firm, which concluded that faculty and hourly staff salaries were “in line” or “comparable to” national averages.
For example, the JBL study found that faculty members at the University of Maine made $6,300 less on average than faculty at 10 peer universities — including the University of New Hampshire and University of Massachusetts Boston.
At the University of Maine at Fort Kent, the study found that faculty members made about $13,000 less on average than peers at Keene State College, Bridgewater State University and other comparable schools.
Neil Greenburg, president of the Universities of Maine Professional Staff Association, also questioned the accuracy of the Aon Hewitt study, saying that 91 percent of the employees represented by his group fell “well below market-competitive [salary] levels.”
Mosley also cited the system’s 2009 faculty compensation report, which showed that faculty members consistently were paid less than national averages.
Mosley thanked the committee for allowing him to speak on Sunday, saying he was glad to see dialogue opening up between the system and faculty. His tone changed by Monday’s full board meeting, where he spoke during the public comment session.
“There are a lot of reasons to be pessimistic now, and I have to say that we are a dysfunctional family,” Mosley said, expressing frustration over a lack of communication between faculty and the system and the stalled contract negotiations. Members of the Associated Faculties of the Universities of Maine haven’t had a new contract since the last one expired on June 30, 2011.
He argued that the board of trustees was insulated from the campuses and their faculty and that “the feeling of being unvalued and undervalued among faculty and staff is growing.”
Education, like medicine, has annual price hikes that defy common sense. Professor pay is a big part of the picture as are sports programs. But lets not talk about it, lets just give them what they want and hope that the problem and unaffordable education just goes away. It didn’t work for health care but heck, it might for education some day.
Professor pay in the UMS has basically been stagnant. UMaine professors are currently working without a contract after rejecting a pay raise of .5%. These pay hikes were nearly all at the administrative level. I know we all like to bemoan “overpaid, entitled professors” but the facts just don’t bear that out in this case.
Agree that professors don’t really make that much money considering training, education, etc., but the evidence does suggest they are paid reasonably. Although only 87% (UMO) of “peer institution” rates, this seems reasonable given the cost of living differences and, frankly, quality differences between institutions. Add in the very high fringe rate (nearly 50%), and I think it’s pretty comparable.
But again, the myth of “overpaid, entitled” professors is indeed silly. “Overpaid entitled” deans and administrators? Sure, I’ll buy that…
UMO doesn’t exist.
Enough of the UMO doesnt exist crap, you call it UMAINE if you like, i was raised on it being UMO and the University is still located in Orono so please, enough correcting will ya.
UMO does not exist, and your wishing the name were as you want it doesn’t make it so. Hope UMaine isn’t responsible for your writing style and spelling. Why so aggressive? A name change is legal, for people as well as institutions.
I wish it did not exist.
I do not believe that it is a myth at all and the problem continues to escalate annually. Why has the cost of an education increased so much if salaries and wages isn’t part of the problem? I agree, deans and administrators are overpaid but professors must bear some of the responsibility. I know several retired professors from UMaine that are very well off financially and their only job has been working at UMaine their entire careers. I don’t have a huge problem with that except that part of the reason why education costs so darn much is we shower educators with unsustainable and unreasonable pension plans that could not possibly be funded, ever! You and Mr Glover may choose to ignore the problem but it is real, it exists and unless it is addressed, education will become completely unaffordable for all but a few.
It would be interesting to graph the rate of salary increase for faculty versus the rate of tuition increase. I don’t think they line up. Faculty salary increases are in line with inflation.
That said, if Maine wants good professors, they need to pay what the market requires. Good administrators? I think they’re a dime a dozen.
Do you really think $75K is overpaying professors? Maybe we have different concepts of overpaying…
Jack Cosgrove gets $240,000 with benefits great pay for a part time job. They are not even allowed to train in the off season.
University of Maine System faces declining enrollment, aging facilities. Need anyone say more.
No wonder tuition is high….
How many average hours a week do the professors work in order to earn their salaries when averaged across 52 weeks? How many average hours per week do the professors actually teach class in order to earn their salaries when averaged across 52 weeks? I am interested in the second number because in many professions, we all take home work and don’t get paid extra for it. So please – let’s exclude any “homework” they do from the hours worked.
I recognize that many of the professors have Ph.D.’s, meaning they spent perhaps 4-5 years after getting their Bachelors degrees. To be fair, I suppose an alternate way of looking at average annual hourly earnings would include blending in these 4-5 years – both their hours and any earnings that might have been received during pursuit of the Ph.D’s.
Then, based on these hours what does their average hourly income come out to – with and without benefits, including health insurance and pensions?
As Tracy Bigney reported, there are 351 fewer full time positions. While non-faculty staff have had to take on extra tasks which redefine their jobs, faculty have also had to take on duties which were once performed by support staff, yet faculty haven’t even gotten the equivalent of a cost of living increase.
The raises mentioned in the article are shamefully disrespectful to the faculty who are treated increasingly like assembly line workers, as if they just report to work and then leave at the end of a shift. Faculty I know need to continually revise lecture notes, learn new computer systems several times a year, and then deal with increasingly disrespectful and mentally unstable students. Add financially strapped parents to the list, and the workload of faculty is significantly different from what it was only ten years ago.
If they do not like it find another job……… Part of the reason for disrespectful emotionally unstable students is because in the attempts to recruit more students they do not only take they best . The ratio of high school grads going to college keeps going up. Then they complain enrollment is down. Ever here of downsizing Like in the real world when the work is slow ? No they want to grow forever .
faculty paid less than national average . So is cost of living in Maine and wages In on most jobs.
UMaine faculty and most professional, classified, and custodial employees have had no pay increase since their last contract was signed three years ago. They have been offered an insulting .5% for a new contract by persons like Becky Wyke and Tracy Bigney–neither of whom has a doctorate or equivalent–earning at least $150,000 a year in mere base pay (God knows what more they earn beyond this). The Trustees generally earn hundreds of thousands a year in their corporate jobs and never apologize for that. The top coaches earn $200,000 or more plus special rewards for long-term service (NOT THEIR WON-LOSS RECORDS). Anyone who thinks that UMaine profs. are grossly overpaid is living in fantasy land. Ditto anyone who thinks that the no. of hours in the classroom or the no. of weeks during the semesters is all that most profs. do. The System has not reduced its employees by more than two or three. Meanwhile the taxpayers and the students suffer the most. Don’t buy into the System’s pr.