FACULTY WANTS PAY GUARANTEE

CAPE GIRARDEAU -- The Faculty Senate at Southeast Missouri State University is considering a plan calling for a three-year guaranteed pay raise and awarding of merit pay for faculty.

After months of wrangling over a merit pay plan that calls for implementation only in years when at least a 4 percent across-the-board pay hike would kick in, senators appeared to scrap the idea Wednesday.

Instead, senators voiced support for a plan that calls for a guaranteed minimum raise of 2 percent across-the-board each year for three years, along with fringe benefits and the awarding of merit pay of $1,000 to each eligible faculty member in each of those years.

The plan envisions that the university would commit to a total annual, minimum increase of 4 percent, counting both the across-the-board hike and merit pay.

Faculty Senator Shelba Branscum said the plan would guarantee faculty members would not only receive annual pay raises, for the three years beginning with the 1992-93 year, but that money would be set aside for merit pay.

The plan would have no bearing on faculty compensation for the 1992 fiscal year, which begins July 1.

Branscum and other faculty members argued that, in these tight financial times, requiring a 4 percent across-the-board pay hike before merit pay would kick in would likely result in no merit pay being awarded.

Earlier in the meeting, faculty members suggested ways to carry merit pay over from one year to the next in years that merit pay would not be funded.

That prompted Faculty Senator Larry Lowrance to question the whole merit pay process. "This whole process is one that is beginning to stink," he said.

He said merit pay should be funded off the top of the financial pie "or else the whole thing is a sham."

Provost Leslie Cochran said the new plan, calling for guaranteed merit pay and a trimmed down across-the-board pay hike for three years would be "far more feasible" from a financial standpoint.

Cochran estimated the plan would cost the university an additional $720,000 a year.

Each percent increase in across-the-board pay amounts to $180,000. A 2 percent hike for the 400 faculty will amount to about $360,000, said Cochran.

Assuming that 360 of the faculty qualify for merit pay, the university would be paying out another $360,000, explained Cochran.