MERIT PAY SHOULD NOT BE ACROSS-THE-BOARD RAISE

A university's board of regents is duty-bound to guard the interests of the institution it serves and the taxpayers who support it. We believe the regents at Southeast Missouri State University have done that regarding the recent merit pay issue. By not automatically adopting the administration recommendation in this case, the regents have coordinated the merit pay issue with its proper intent and conducted the oversight that is their appointed chore.

The regents' reaction in June to a merit pay recommendation was right on the money and they have persevered without wavering in the dispute that has followed. What the board did was agree as it has done since 1987 to the principle of merit pay for faculty but turn down a Faculty Senate bill that mandates an automatic pay raise for three years under the guise of this principle. The administration had supported the Faculty Senate bill. The regents contended the issue of merit pay should be separated from any faculty compensation package and rejected the recommendation.

The regents were right, both on the substance of the issue and in their authority to adjust what was a misdirected idea. Ultimately, the concept of merit pay at the university, which the faculty has pushed for, will be better for this.

Minutes of the June 6 regents meeting reveal the ambiguity of the Faculty Senate approach. In the official record of the meeting, Provost Les Cochran makes reference to the measure as an "automatic three percent merit pay increase." The regents correctly stumbled on this idea. Merit pay should not be "automatic" or across-the-board; in the minds of most people, merit pay should be compensation for exceptional work. Just as all students can not, by definition, be deemed above average, all faculty members can't be worthy of merit pay. Under the Faculty Senate plan, it was almost impossible not to get the merit award. This defeats the objective of merit pay.

University employees, not just faculty, are appropriately concerned that the school's budget for the just-started fiscal year includes no salary increases. It is the pox of these lean economic times. We hope and believe the fiscal situation will improve. In the meantime, the regents have said that the consideration of faculty compensation and merit pay should be addressed separately. They are absolutely right ... and further are correct cutting short the measure as it was proposed.