Ohio University officials are planning to put more than $6 million into faculty raises over the next five years, but a projected $11 million budget deficit could stand in the way.
OU's tentative plans to raise faculty salaries ' identified in the Vision Ohio document as a top university concern ' include an average of $1.26 million of reserved Vision Ohio money over the next five years, the Faculty Compensation Task Force estimated.
The task force, formed and chaired by OU Provost Kathy Krendl, determined that a $6.3 million investment over the next five years would meet Vision Ohio's goal of compensating faculty members at a nationally competitive level.
OU currently ranks ninth out of 11 among its 10 peer universities in average faculty compensation, which was $91,300 in 2006, according to the task force study. All faculty ranksG
Ostermann said. We're running the risk of not recruiting top faculty or losing them.
Faculty Senate President Phyllis Bernt agreed that raising faculty pay is an important priority, a movement that also had unanimous support at the Feb. 16 Board of Trustees meeting in Chillicothe.
We're losing faculty members she said. Departments aren't getting their first choices.
Krendl said the budget planning council she co-chairs has included the planned 3.2 percent employee pay raise in all variations of its planning budgets, but it still must go through an approval process.
We assumed (the 3.2 percent raise) as an automatic but of course it is still an assumption at this point
Krendl said. Increased faculty salaries will improve the retention
the transfers and the quality of all aspects of the university. I think it's important that even in times of fiscal constraint
the most important investment is in our faculty.
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Laura Bernheim
