DRAFT
SUBPOLICY ON FACULTY RAISES
Each year that a faculty raise is given, the faculty will first be
evaluated for a market adjustment. The relative size of the money
set aside for market adjustments compared to the overall size of
money set aside for raises may vary from year to year due to
various economic factors. The President will decide each year on
how much money is available for market adjustments. The
adjustment is decided by the University for each faculty member
individually using appropriate HR methods. However, a faculty
member whose rubric rating for the year is below 2.0 will be
deemed to have been ineffective in their job for the year and will
not be awarded a market adjustment.
The previous year base salary of a faculty member along with
the above determined market adjustment will be referred to
as the adjusted base salary of the faculty member. The
President will decide the amount of money that is to be set
aside for merit raises for the faculty. Each academic unit will
receive a portion of this money based on the ratio of the total
of all continuing faculty adjusted salaries in the unit to the
total of all continuing faculty adjusted salaries in the
University. This portion will be doled out to individual faculty
members in the unit based on the ratio of the faculty
member’s rubric adjusted evaluation to the sum of all faculty
members’ adjusted rubric evaluations within the unit. The
purpose of this step is to remove observer bias that may occur
between units from affecting the final results between units.
The President in consultation with the Provost will provide
the Deans with a number of earned supplements to be
awarded to faculty within the Dean’s college. These awards
will be made by the Dean in consultation with the Provost in
order to reward individual faculty members for service to
the College in obtaining goals as outlined in the College’s
Strategic Plan. The size and number of these awards may
vary from year to year as determined by the President and
the Provost and may well vary in size and number from
College to College.
The President may also elect to add funds for merit
evaluation distribution to some units based on having gone
above and beyond to help the University succeed in its
strategic plan.
FACULTY PAY RAISES
The pay raise that a continuing faculty member receives will be the result of
combining the raises obtained from each of four different categories:
Market Adjustments, Merit Raises, College Mission Investments, and
University Initiatives. The President, following consultation with the Vice
Presidents, will decide how much money will be in each category during a
pay raise cycle.
Category 1: Market Adjustments (done once every 3 years at a minimum)
• follows EEO guidelines;
• those whose merit evaluations are below 2 on a rolling average over
the past three years do not receive an adjustment;
• there will probably need to be a cap on the size of individual
adjustments;
• HR handles this; not the chain of command administrators
Category 2: Merit Raises
• faculty whose evaluation score for the year is below 2 will not
receive a merit raise;
• each academic unit will receive a sum of money for merit
distribution that is in the same proportion as the units total
adjusted salary is to the total adjusted salary of all academic
units. (For example: if the unit makes 1% of the adjusted salaries
of all the continuing faculty, then the unit will receive 1% of the
Category 2 money for distribution);
• a faculty member that is to receive a merit raise will receive that
portion of the unit’s Category money that is the proportion of
their adjusted evaluation number to the sum of all the faculty
adjusted evaluation scores in the unit who are to receive merit
raises
Example:
Suppose the evaluation scores for a unit are 1.5, 2.5, 3, 4. Then since
the faculty member with a 1.5 is to receive no merit raise, then the
faculty member with a 3 would receive (3-2)/(2.5-2)+(3-2)+(4-2) =
1/.5+1+2 of the units Category 2 money.
Note: This handles observer bias. Imagine two units with the
following evaluations and the calculation of the portion of Category 2
money each receives:
Unit A: 4,4,4,4 --- 4/4+4+4+4 = 4/16 = 1/4
Unit B: 3,3,3,3 --- 3/3+3+3+3 = 3/12 = 1/4
Note: When a faculty member does not receive a merit raise, their
portion of the Category 2 money is distributed to the other members
of the unit.
Category 3: College Mission Investments
• typically at least 10% of raise money is in this category;
• the Dean provides additional money to individual faculty with
the agreement of the Provost. The size and number of these
investments may be pre-determined;
• these investments are for faculty who have gone above and
beyond in helping the college succeed in its strategic plan
Category 4: University Investments
• the President and Provost may elect to add funds for merit
evaluation distribution to some units;
• these funds would go to units that have gone above and
beyond to help the University succeed in its strategic plan
Distribution Algorithms
Pay Raises in the past:
Cat I -- $3,000
Cat II -- $2,500
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Absolute increase
Cat I -- 5%
Cat II -- 4%
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Percent increase
Rubric Issues:
a) Want to have increases in merit that can handle much smaller
increases in evaluation. 3.22 should receive less than 3.31
b) Because of ending quotas, we need to stop observer bias
from shifting money from units with a “hard grader” as
evaluator to units with an “easy grader” as evaluator.
The introduction of specified “pots” of raise money for individual units
as described earlier will isolate from each other and thereby eliminate
problem (b).
Assume a unit has 3 faculty with $12,000 to split in raise money with
the following salaries: A - $40,000; B - $80,000; C - $120,000. I will
consider this fixed example of a unit as we explore a number of
possible algorithms to handle the problem of distributing all of the
raise money in accordance with the wish described in (a).
Original algorithm: assume evaluations of A – 2.5; B – 3; C – 3.2
Then the raises could be evaluated as
A: 2.5/(2.5 + 3 + 3.2) [$12,000] = $3,448.28
What could be viewed as a problem occurs near an evaluation of 2.
Remember that an evaluation of 2 or below is to receive no raise. So
imagine evaluations of A – 3; B – 2.01; C – 2. Then by the above
algorithm we calculate:
A: 3/5.01 x $12,000 = $7,185.63
B: 2.01/5.01 x $12,000 = $4,814.37
C: $0
A change of .01 yields a huge difference in salary when the
evaluations are nearly the same.
Solution: Translate the evaluations by 2 and get a different result.
A – (3-2) = 1
B – (2.01 -2) = .01
C – (2-2) = 0
Use the same algorithm with shifted evaluations. Remember that
evaluations that shift to 0 or negative values get no raise.
A: 1/1.01 x $12,000 = $11,881.19
B: .01/1.01 x $12,000 = $118.81
C: $0
Let’s call this shifted algorithm the absolute algorithm
Consider evaluations:
A–3
B–3
C–3
(3-2) = 1
(3-2) = 1
(3-2) = 1
1/3 x ($12,000) = $4,000
1/3 x ($12,000) = $4,000
1/3 x ($12,000) = $4,000
What about evaluations: A – 5
(5-2) = 3
(5-2) = 3
(5-2) = 3
3/9 x ($12,000) = $4,000
3/9 x ($12,000) = $4,000
3/9 x ($12,000) = $4,000
B–5
C–5
The difference in in salary within a unit is created by varying one
evaluation from the next. The average of the evaluations within the
unit being high or low makes no real difference.
If you see the merit raise results for a unit and don’t feel the
outcomes are correct, then why not go back to the judgment calls
made on the rubrics? Perhaps a judgment was too harsh or too easy.
Note that the absolute algorithm has nothing to do with people’s
salary. “A” who makes $40,000 will be happy with the 10% increase
given by a fixed $4,000 raise. “C” who makes $120,000 will possibly
feel cheated by a mere 3 1/3% raise that the same evaluation and the
same raise of $4,000 yields with this algorithm.
Percent algorithm: Using the actual salaries into the algorithm in a
weighted fashion, will yield a percent algorithm.
Evaluation Shifted
A: $40,000
(4-2) = 2
B: $80,000
(4-2) = 2
C: $120,000
(4-2) = 2
A: ($40,000 x 2) / (($40,000 x 2) + ($80,000 x 2) + ($120,000 x 2)) x $12,000 = $2,000
B: ($80,000 x 2) / (($40,000 x 2) + ($80,000 x 2) + ($120,000 x 2)) x $12,000 = $4,000
C: ($120,000 x 2) / (($40,000 x 2) + ($80,000 x 2) + ($120,000 x 2)) x $12,000 = $6,000
Note that A, B, and C all got 5% raises. “C” is happier and “A” is
sadder. If A1 is the absolute algorithm and A2 is the percent algorithm
then we can create blended algorithms such as .2A1 + .8A2 or .8A1 +
.2A2 or anything where the positive coefficients add to 1.
I expect there are infinitely more algorithms than the infinite number
we’ve looked at that can satisfy the above criteria.
Recommendation: Each year the University should pick one algorithm
for everyone to use. That would stop any games being playing within
a unit. The algorithm could easily be put into a spreadsheet for use by
a department head.