Fixing faculty salary scales is a high priority

By Susan F. French

As of October 2006, 73.4% of UC faculty systemwide and 76% of UCLA faculty were being paid off-scale increments, even though the personnel policy (APM 620) states that off-scale salaries are paid only in exceptional circumstances.

The basic problem is that cutbacks in state funding for UC have led to faculty salaries that are on average 14% below market. In order to hire new faculty, UC has had to pay salaries that are "off-scale"— more than the salary scale associated with the rank and step of the person being hired.

Our below-market salaries have also tempted other universities to try to hire UC faculty. To retain valued faculty members, UC has had to resort to paying off-scale salaries.

For several years, the Academic Senate has called for upward revisions of the salary scales to save UC's historic rank and step system, in which salaries are tied to peer-reviewed performance.

The large percentage of faculty receiving off-scale increments causes several problems. Salaries paid to new hires are often higher than salaries of faculty hired earlier. Faculty who seek and receive outside offers are paid more than others of similar rank and step. Those who do not play the outside-offer game pay the so-called "loyalty penalty." On those campuses where off-scales are determined solely by administrators, there are concerns about the lack of peer review and the potential for playing favorites.

The current situation has led to tension and resentment among the faculty, particularly among those who have been left behind. The need to pay off-scale salaries to hire and retain high-quality faculty has also led to distortions in the staffing process. Fewer professors are hired so that available funds can be used to offer competitive salaries.

Last fall, UC President Robert Dynes responded to faculty concerns by appointing a working group to figure out how to reduce the number of faculty receiving off-scale salaries and to bring UC faculty salaries to competitive levels in a much shorter time frame than the 10-year period announced by the regents in September 2005 (RE-89). That group has nearly finished its work, and a proposal for new salary scales and COLAs (cost-of-living adjustments) should be presented to the regents in September for implementation on Oct. 1, 2007.

Chaired by Provost Rory Hume, the working group includes John Oakley, chair of the Academic Senate; Chris Newfield, chair of the systemwide Committee on Planning on Budget; Mary Croughan, chair of the systemwide Committee on Academic Personnel; Norm Abrams, previous acting chancellor of UCLA; and various other administrators (mostly vice chancellors from various campuses). I am also part of the working group as chair of the systemwide Committee on Faculty Welfare.

The new scale proposals are in the process of being refined with input from each of the campuses. Implementation of the new scales will bring many UC faculty back on scale and bring many UC salaries up to market.

This is a move long overdue. Let's hope that the regents approve the plan and find a way to fund it.

French is a professor at the UCLA School of Law and chair of the systemwide Committee on Faculty Welfare for 2006-07.

Also see Four-year plan to upgrade faculty salaries under regents' review.