BY MICHAEL C. BEHRENT

Faculty at public institutions in many states are experiencing declining real salaries. This is particularly true in states where legislators are hostile to public higher education on principle. North Carolina is one such state. Faculty salaries in the University of North Carolina system have stagnated since the 2008 crisis. The past few months have offered a particularly instructive example of how legislators are seeking to “starve the beast” that is (in their eyes, anyway) the UNC system.

You can’t say the Republican legislators who dominate North Carolina’s legislature aren’t cunning (after all, they gerrymandered it so well they managed to deprive the Democratic governor elected in 2016 of most of his powers). Their beast-starving recipe goes something like this:

– A few months before the November 2018 elections, make yourself popular by giving state employees a pay raise;

– Specifically exclude from this provision employees of the state university system;

– Give the state university system’s governing board a lump sum; then, have the board divide it up between the system’s seventeen campuses;

– Tell the individual campuses they first have to give all staff a raise;

– Make sure that, once this is done, hardly anything is left for faculty;

– Tell individual campuses that if they can cough up their own money, they’re welcome to give faculty a small, one-time bonus (at the campus’s expense).

– Let campus administrators or the Human Resource office communicate to faculty that they will get little no raise or a small bonus. Administrators should, as always, infer that larger amounts are possible, while seldom delivering these rewards. Their missives should be cast in bureaucratic blather: they should talk about how hard administrators struggled to locate elusive funds, how committed they are to faculty well-being, how supportive they are of the university “family,” how much they value the university’s academic mission, and, most importantly, how exactly equal to zero most faculty raises will be.

– For their trouble—managing obstreperous faculty deemed unworthy of pay raises in a booming economy is never much fun—award most campus presidents a hefty pay raise. Good work, after all, should never go unrewarded…

This is how this “recipe” played out:

On June 12, the North Carolina General Assembly completed the 2018-19 State Budget, which took effect on July 1. The budget gave most state employees a 2% pay raise. However, the budget specifically excluded employees of the University of North Carolina (UNC)—the seventeen-campus public university system—from this provision. Instead, the General Assembly appropriated a lump sum of $20 million to the UNC Board of Governors, the system’s governing body. The Board was then charged with allocating this money for salaries across the system. The sum was to be used both for employees who are subject to the state human resources act (known as SHRA), who are mostly staff, and to employees who are exempt from the human resources act (EHRA), who are largely faculty. The appropriation also established a new minimum salary for full-time state employees of $31,200 (the equivalent of $15 an hour). As one UNC campus’ Human Resources website noted, the appropriation to the UNC Board was “not sufficient to provide a 2 percent increase to all state-funded positions across the [UNC] System.”

While determining how the $20 million would be allocated across the seventeen institutions, the Board of Governors, upon the recommendation of the UNC System Office, decided to award staff (SHRA) a 2% pay increase and issued guidelines for doing so. The Board authorized campuses to give faculty (EHRA) raises as well. When it was clear that the campuses were struggling to give faculty pay raises with their appropriations, the  Board’s Committee on Personnel and Tenure, at its September meeting, authorized the system president to allow individual campuses to find the funds to give faculty merit raises of up to 4.99%.

Once the allocation was made, it was up to individual institutions to determine how their share of the $20 million would be used. Individual campuses were expected to implement the 2% pay raise for staff. But pay raises for faculty were either tiny or non-existent. This is what the North Carolina Conference of the AAUP was able to learn (thanks to members across the UNC system) about how specific campuses made the allocations and communicated their decisions to faculty:

– Appalachian State University’s Human Resources office sent out an email to employees on September 26. After explaining the Board of Governors’ mandate to give 2% pay raises to staff, it concluded: “Unfortunately, for the first time in five years, we will not be able to provide an annual raise process for EHRA faculty and non-faculty employees this year.” The raises referred to, it should be noted, were minimal and often less than inflation. The email did not mention that the Board had authorized the university to award faculty one-time bonuses. At its November 12 meeting, Appalachian State’s Faculty Senate passed a resolution condemning the university’s decision and requesting that it revisit the allocation to find ways to give faculty a raise.

– At the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, the Provost informed the campus in the fall that the university had created a 2% salary pool for faculty to provide them with raise opportunities on par with those the state had made available to staff.  The Provost added that the university used “growth funds” and that “2% was all we could afford.”

– Faculty at the University of North Carolina at Asheville received an email from the administration that “address[ed] the matter of salary increases.” Noting that the legislature had provided “limited salary increases to be administered through the UNC System and UNC campuses,” it explained that “[c]ountless conversations among system leaders have taken place in Raleigh and in Chapel Hill on this topic.” Proclaiming that “[w]e, at UNC Asheville, despite very limited funding for salaries, are committed to an equitable and financially-viable path for employee increases,” the email ended with these words: “Please know that we are exploring every source of funds to apply to this very limited salary pool. We will give you additional information once all options have been explored.” At the time of writing, faculty at UNC Asheville had received no further update, though they did receive merit increases that were well below inflation.

– At the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, faculty in at least one academic department were informed that across-the-board raises were prohibited this year, though some faculty would receive raises based on merit and salary equity concerns and that these would be reflected in their paychecks as of October 31.

– At North Carolina State University, the Provost sent a memo on August 17, 2018, stating that “[e]ligible EHRA employees may be awarded a discretionary ARP [annual raise process] increase, subject to the ARP caps and criteria described in the implementation guidelines. EHRA ARP increases are not across-the-board and must be allocated strategically and selectively based on performance appraisal ratings for EHRA non-faculty or meritorious performance for faculty, including teaching, service, publications, and/or research productivity.” EHRA salary increases would be allowed in recognition of demonstrated meritorious performance, with up to 2.5% for faculty who are “meeting expectations,” and up to 4.99% for EHRA non-faculty employees who “exceed expectations” and eligible EHRA senior administrators who are in “good standing.” Actual raises were apparently much less than the maximum allowed, but specific figures are not readily available.

– Western Carolina University’s administration reminded faculty in the fall that in the previous spring, the university had made “salary increases a top priority … and dedicated $1.4 million for salary adjustments for existing faculty and staff.” After explaining that it was implementing the Board-mandated staff salary increases, it concluded that while the “UNC Board of Governors also established guidelines for campuses to make additional discretionary adjustments for SHRA staff and EHRA faculty and non-faculty staff,” Western Carolina’s allocation for salary adjustments was “not sufficient to fund any additional increases.”

– On September 5, East Carolina University’s Human Resources office informed faculty of the salary situation. After the 2% pay raise was implemented for staff, it noted that “there was a small amount of funds remaining.” If this amount had been allocated to faculty and other employees exempt from the state Human Resources Act, “the resulting increase would have averaged less than 0.3%.” “Consequently,” the email concluded, “the Vice Chancellors recommended to the Chancellor that we allocate all funds to SHRA/CSS [Subject to the Human Resources Act/Clinical Support Services] employees that met the criteria for eligibility.” Lest faculty failed to understand that they were getting no pay raise, the ECU’s Human Resource Office illustrated the situation with a colorful graph:

 

Meanwhile, while most UNC-system faculty received no pay raises for 2018, the chancellors that is, presidents) of ten of the seventeen UNC campuses were awarded significant pay raises (and/or bonuses) by the UNC Board of Governors at its November 9 meeting. This is at least the fourth pay raise that UNC chancellors have received in so many years (previous ones were made in October 2015, July 2016, and December 2017). These raises are awarded at a time when faculty salaries have, since 2008, mostly been stagnant. Here are the current chancellors raises, as reported in the Carolina Journal:

Chancellor Randy Woodson, NC State University
Current: $632,810
Increase: $31,577
New: $664,387

Chancellor Philip Dubois, UNC Charlotte
Current: $461,250
Increase: $23,016
New: $484,266

Chancellor Franklin Gilliam, UNC Greensboro
Current: $390,141
Increase: $19,468
New: $409,609

Chancellor Harold Martin, North Carolina A&T University
Current: $374,535
Increase: $18,689
New: $393,224

Chancellor Sheri Everts, Appalachian State University
Current: $357,270
Increase: $17,828
New: $375,098

Chancellor Jose Sartarelli, UNC Wilmington
Current: $372,977
Increase: $18,612
New: $391,589

Chancellor James Anderson, Fayetteville State University
Current: $338,122
Increase: $16,872
New: $354,994

Chancellor Robin Cummings, UNC Pembroke
Current: $298,382
Increase: $14,889
New: $313,271

Chancellor Lindsay Bierman, UNC School of the Arts
Current: $301,709
Increase: $15,055
New: $316,764

Chancellor Todd J. Roberts, North Carolina School of Science and Math
Current: $239,286
Increase: $5,982
New: $245,268

In short, the legislators left the chancellors with inadequate funds to provide meaningful raises.  Some chancellors may have come up with additional funds—allowing them to seem benevolent—but these bonuses varied from campus to campus and have not been clearly reported. This completely opaque system is yet another step in the legislature’s efforts to undermine the universities, sowing dissent and distrust between faculty and the administration, as well as keeping the faculty in sustainable need.

Michael C. Behrent
Appalachian State University
Vice President of the North Carolina State AAUP Conference