AHC Finance & Planning

January 17 and February 7, 2002

Minutes of the Meeting

These minutes reflect discussion and debate at a meeting of a committee of the University of Minnesota AHC Faculty Assembly; none of the comments, conclusions, or actions reported in these minutes represent the views of, nor are they binding on, the Assembly, the Administration, or the Board of Regents.

PRESENT: Dan Feeney (chair), Tim Church, Carol Wells, Katie Dusenbery and Beth Nunnally

REGRETS: Mike Speidel and Donna Brauer

These minutes reflect discussion of two meetings at which faculty compensation was the sole agenda item.

Overview: In January the AHC F&P Committee began discussions regarding faculty compensation. The impetus for delving into this subject came about after Committee members were apprised that faculty in some academic units received 2001-02 pay increases that were specifically identified as separate from increases to base salary. These “new” salary increases have been identified as “university increments” and it has been explained (to faculty) that continued availability of these “incremental” funds depends on the units and/or departments revenues from soft money. This raised a number of questions and concerns including what the concept of “base” salary means as part of a faculty member’s tenure and the institutional obligation for that base salary. Over the course of their discussions, Committee members raised a number of questions and points including:

• How large should the “salary increment” portion of a tenured faculty member’s salary be in relationship to the “tenure-guaranteed base salary?”
• Should there be floors established for base salaries by rank?
• Should there be a maximum amount of tenure-guaranteed base salary by rank?
• The concept of “salary increments” should be clarified.
• Determine the amount of salary supplementation that can take place over and above the “base salary,” plus/minus the “salary increments.”
• Clarify the relationship of “clinical practice income” to the so-called tenure-guaranteed base.
• Should guidelines be set on the appropriate use of 9-month appointments with consistent guidelines across the AHC Schools?
• Consistent faculty-approved procedures should be developed for merit evaluation applicable to all AHC colleges and departments including a) the concept of average merit, extraordinary merit, etc. implemented on a simple scale that results in meaningful relationship between performance and reward; b) the relative input of the Chair/Head to merit scores; c) a minimum merit reward for average performance; and, d) the adherence to guidelines defined in existing policies.
• Equitable percent of 0100 $$ support for a department including a minimum number of faculty to be considered a department [this includes a concept of correlation between 0100 monies and the number of faculty and the amount of teaching].
• A policy should be considered regarding the “net of expenses” distributions among clinical operations and between the clinical and academic operations.
• A policy should be considered on position control including the idea of position reallocation when FTE’s (particularly tenure track) become available due to departure, death or retirement.

It should be note that SVP Cerra met with the Committee at an earlier time to discuss a number of issues and when this matter was brought to his attention, he asked the Committee to look into it and provide him with some recommendations. Professor Feeney will forward the questions/points to Dr. Cerra to inform him of the direction the Committee is moving.

In addition, it was decided that Professor Feeney would write to Professor Fred Morrison and ask his views on the following questions:

• If a faculty member receives a salary increase identified as University increments, under what conditions can these increases be taken away?

• Under what conditions can a unit leader determine that no faculty member in his/her unit will receive an increase to base salary in a particular year?
• Can these University increments be taken away at the discretion of the unit leader, at the elimination of the academic unit, at the conclusion of a year of low soft money revenues? How does this answer compare to the conditions under which tenure faculty can have base salary reduced?
• Does awarding of salary increases as University increments (rather than as increases to base salary) weaken a faculty member’s job protection (i.e., salary protection) under the tenure code where tenure is based at the level of the Regents rather than at the level of the academic unit?

Professor Morrison’s response to these questions will be shared with the Committee.

Committee members discussed, but no decision was made, about inviting Carol Carrier to an upcoming meeting to talk about the definition of an increment and whether it is university-wide or specific to areas in the AHC.

The decision was made to talk more with Beth Nunnally about the questions regarding the current AHC salary situation; review universities polices, and consider conducting an audit of the AHC units. It was agreed that there is a need to define a set of principles and/or guidelines with respect to faculty salaries as well as a mechanism for oversight. Committee members opined that if time and effort were to be put into the development of these ideas and/or policies it would be a waste if they were then allowed to be ignored.

The discussion of faculty salaries will continue at the next meeting of the AHC F&P Committee.

Vickie Courtney

University Senate