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Board
to review staff requests TCU staff members will find out if they will receive the salary and benefits increases requested last November when the Board of Trustees meet today. In a letter to Chancellor Michael Ferrari on Nov. 28, the Staff Assembly asked for a raise in the base wage of $7.25 an hour. It also requested increases in salaries for long-term employees and an increase in the university’s contribution to retirement benefits of non-exempt staff from 9.5 percent to 10.5 percent. Both Ferrari and Carol Campbell, vice chancellor of business and finance, would not comment on the likelihood of these increases passing, other than to say compensation issues were high on the agenda. Bob Seal, Staff Assembly chairman, said he did not doubt the administration’s commitment to staff concerns. “I am confident the chancellor will do everything he can to help us out on funding,” Seal said. In a Jan. 15 TCU Daily Skiff article, administrators said the university is facing a tighter budget because of lower income from the university’s endowment. Ferrari would
not comment on how the current economic situation will affect staff
pay. “There are always more compensation issues than we can solve in any one year,” Campbell said. According to a study conducted by four Staff Assembly members, the annual minimum salary for staff is $15,080. That is below the poverty line of $15,096 for a family of two, according to the Texas Department for Human Services Web site. A family of three is $3,940 below the poverty level assuming only one member worked. The study also cited that 65 percent of employees in the grounds department work a second job. Tara Pope, a Staff Assembly member who assisted in the study, said steps must be taken to ensure all staff have a “living wage” soon. Two years ago, the administration raised the base wage 26.5 percent from $5.73 to $7.25. The Staff Assembly is requesting an increase to either $7.50, $7.75 or $8 an hour. Staff Assembly members said the increase caused salary compression. Salary compression occurs when wages for jobs filled outside of the university are increasing faster than wages for jobs filled within the university. The result is that employees who have spent several years with university make close to or the same as new employees. The university allocated $1 million in last year’s budget to address compression, but staff members said some employees who had worked at TCU the longest received no compensation from that fund. Non-exempt employees earning 95 percent or above the average salary of their job group were ineligible, according to the study. Non-exempt staff are hourly employees who are eligible for overtime pay. Pope said she is worried a similar base-wage increase could take place, further hurting long-term employees. “The only way to avoid that is to raise wages for everyone,” Pope said. “We don’t want (base-wage increases) at the expense of long-term employees.” Brandon
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