Study: Southeast faculty, staff paid less than at other similar universities

A study by an external consulting company hired by Southeast Missouri State University showed that many faculty, staff and clerical, technical and service council employees at Southeast are, on average, paid less than employees at other selected, comparable universities.

The company provided recommendations and ways to implement them to close the gap and allow Southeast to hire and retain top-quality professionals while still remaining competitive in the market.

J.W. Terrill, the company hired by Southeast, recommended the salaries of 251 of Southeast's 978 employees be raised, although Kathy Mangels, the vice president of finance and administration at Southeast, said more or fewer employees may receive a salary adjustment because not all of the recommendations may be adopted or they may be modified.

The Budget Review Committee set aside some funding to increase employee salaries in the spring for the fiscal year 2014 budget that began July 1. The goal is to implement adjustments in January.

"That's why there is funding in place to implement in January," Mangels said. "It was a decision of the group, collectively, that that money was very important, that we look at salaries and that some of our funding be set aside to address it, so we won't require any new funding for this fiscal year."

Mangels added that the money the committee set aside in spring may not initially fund all the recommendations, and, if that is the case, some may be phased in later.

"Until we all decide on the recommendations and how we want to implement them, we can't say what the final dollar [amount] is," Mangels said.

Mangels said as part of the university's compensation philosophy, the administration wanted to look at how much faculty and staff are paid in relation to the market. The aim of the study was to know what Southeast needs to offer to recruit and retain the quality of people that it wants and find ways to ensure Southeast remains competitive in wages within the market in the future.

Director of Human Resources Jim Cook said the university has done two internal assessments in the last 13 years.

"We wanted to get a consultant that has the years of experience in human resource and in compensation to help us out," Mangels said. "We want to make sure that we are getting the best data that is out there."

JWT sampled 18 universities in the region and calculated the median salaries at those universities to compare Southeast's salaries. The entire Southeast faculty body and a majority of staff members also provided feedback.

"We are pleased that there has been good participation in this process," Mangels said.

JWT found the total average of the faculty at Southeast are paid almost the same as the market's median, but that number is skewed in part by instructors making 108.7 percent of the median. Staff is paid 2 percent less than the market median, and CTS are paid almost 8 percent less than the market median.

To address these differences, JWT recommended bringing faculty who meet certain requirements to at least 90 percent of market median while ensuring that Southeast meets the market median in the entire staff average. It also recommended bringing eligible staff to at least 85 percent of market and consider capping individual salary adjustments for this group. Another recommendation is to set the living wage for regular full-time staff at at least $9.50 an hour.

"When we are talking about 90 [percent of market pay], that's where we would be hiring at," Cook said.

But demands on the market may change those percentages.

"Depending at different times, certain disciplines you are going have to pay more than 90 [percent] because they are in demand ... like cyber security, faculty in those areas are in demand, so that may be an area that you are going to have to pay more than you would in another discipline," Mangels said.

Mangels said the focus is to find out where Southeast needs to be in the market to be competitive.

"The way we wanted to look at this is that we didn't want dollars to drive our decisions because it's very important that we all look at the philosophy first and determine where do we need to be," Mangels said. "If we start faculty at around 90 percent of the market, does that make us competitive? Because that's our goal. We need to be competitive to recruit those top faculty for the classroom. So we wanted to decide that first and not let dollars drive that. The same way with staff."

While instructors in all colleges are paid more than the market's median, professors are paid only 93.65 percent of the market's median. Associate professors are paid just above the market median on average and assistant professors almost 2 percent under.

"When you think about the professors, they have more years of service, which means they may have started several years ago when the market was so much lower than it is now," Mangels said.

Another recommendation provided by JWT was to provide start-up packages for newly hired faculty when needed for recruitment. Mangels said that Southeast does not typically provide start-up package option, but Cook said in some cases Southeast provides moving expenses.

Cook said having start-up packages has the advantage that it is a start-up cost, which means the university has to pay it once, making it a cheaper tool that could be used for recruitment.

The recommendations will be brought to the Board of Regents for discussion at its Oct. 24 meeting.

"The goal is that we would implement the first set of recommendations in January so it would result in mid-year salary increase for eligible individuals," Mangels said.

The full study can be found at southeastArrow.com.

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