SEMO regents pass fiscal year 2012 budget

In previous years, a 2 percent raise might have been tantamount to an insult.

But in today's higher education sector that some say is still reeling in recession, any salary increase can be viewed as a victory.

"I think this year was really a good year for the faculty," Kevin Dickson, chairman of the Southeast Missouri State University's Faculty Senate, said Wednesday morning, moments before Southeast's board of regents approved a $96.7 million fiscal year 2012 operating budget, which begins Friday. "We're in a difficult budget situation; so is everybody. But given the situation we're in, I think it came out really well."

The budget includes a faculty base merit salary increase of 1.75 percent and a 0. 25 percent salary pool to fund post-professorial merit increases. There's a 2 percent raise for administration and professional staff, and a 2 percent or $450 minimum wage bump for clerical/technical/service staff.

The board also approved $34.8 million in auxiliary operating budgets for fiscal year 2012, money that comes from fees for student services like residence halls and the student activity center.

Dickson, an associate professor of management in the Department of Management and Marketing in the Harrison College of Business, said faculty members have not lost sight of the fact that they've been under a pay freeze for the past two years. They know it's part of the economic reality, he said, in a state appropriations environment where a 7 percent reduction in higher education spending was considered a boom compared to previously projected cuts.

"There's no doubt that 2 percent doesn't bring us back to where we were and where we could have been, but we think it's an important first step," he said.

Southeast president Ken Dobbins said administration and the university's Budget Review Committee believed pay increases were a top priority after two years of stalled salaries. They are paid for, in large part, via a 4.8 percent increase in tuition and fees, also frozen over the period through a deal between Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon and the state's colleges and universities.

'Doing much better'

Dobbins acknowledges faculty and staff have had to take on more responsibilities for no additional pay.

"Like many people in the current environment, we are working harder," Dickson said. "But when I look at my colleagues in some other states, Illinois being one of them ... there's still no raises there and there are furlough days. We are doing much better."

Southeast faculty and staff appear to be faring the same or slightly better than their peers at other Missouri universities.

Kathy Love, spokeswoman for the Missouri Department of Higher Education, said the agency doesn't generally track faculty and staff raises, but anecdotally the word is funding conditions "have prevented them from giving pay increases over the past several years.

"And what increases were provided were done on merit increase rather than across the board," Love said.

In its annual survey on faculty salaries for 2010-2011, the American Association of University Professors found average overall full-time faculty salary increases of 2.5 percent for all types of institutions -- public and private. Faculty at public universities or colleges saw raises on average at 2.2 percent, and 3.1 percent for professors at private institutions, not religiously affiliated.

"The last two years have been historically low in terms of the rate of increase from the previous year," said John Curtis, director of research and public policy for the Washington, D.C.-based association. "The other thing we're finding is the gap between salaries of staff at public colleges and universities and private schools is widening."

In the Midwest, salary increases for faculty was up 1.6 percent, after inflation, between the 2007-2008 and 2010-2011 academic years. Salaries at private independent colleges were up 2.4 percent. The Northeast saw public faculty raises of 4.7 percent over the period, with salaries declining by 0.8 percent in the South.

With state budgets struggling to recover from pre-recession levels, the worst could be yet to come for higher education, Curtis said, asserting the sector remains stuck in recession.

"What we're seeing, especially in the public sector, is that salaries are beginning to rebound, although I think we may be facing a tougher year in ahead," Curtis said.

mkittle@semissourian.com

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