Present: Bible, Deduck-Evans, Ford, Hays, Horne, Pascoe, Sawey, Simpson,
Stimmel, Weller, and Winek. Absent: Bourgeois, Caverly, Hunter, McGee.
Guests: Margaret Vaverek (Library); Ms. Shirley Pilus, Dylan Sides
(University Star), Mike Moore.
CONTENTS:
FACULTY/STAFF NEW HIRES AT ABOVE ADVERTISED SALARY
NEW BONUS PAY PROPOSAL
MEDIATION ADVISORY COMMITTEE REQUEST (Ombudsman McGee memo)
SAN MARCOS BAR-CLOSING HOURS (Bishop memo)
PARKING APPEALS COMMITTEE
PAAG AGENDA ITEMS
NEW BUSINESS
APPROVAL OF 10/12/96 MINUTES
The meeting was called to order at 4:02, Chair Bible presiding.
FACULTY/STAFF NEW HIRES AT ABOVE ADVERTISED SALARY
The audit report on "Management Controls at Southwest Texas State
University" issued by the TX Office of the State Auditor, April 1996,
states the following:
"Applicants have also been hired at higher salaries than those
listed in the job posting. Departments can offer higher salaries to an
applicant if they consider him or her outstanding compared to the other
applicants, or as a negotiating tool to get the applicant to accept the
job.
When individuals are hired at salaries in excess of those listed in
job postings, it increases the risk that a population of more highly
qualified applicants was excluded from the hiring process. Individuals who
may not have considered applying for a position at the lower posted salary
may have applied at the higher salary. The University also increases its
liability of being accused of discrimination. Posting jobs at a lower rate
than the salary eventually offered can give the appearance of preselecting
an individual candidate by soliciting a less qualified applicant pool for
the individual to compete against."
Therefore, the Audit went on to recommend:
"The University should not offer salaries higher than those listed
in the job posting. If the departments desire some flexibility in what
salary can be offered, then the job posting should state a salary range
rather than a specific salary rate. If the departments post at a specific
salary rate and then desire to hire at a different salary rate, then the
job should be reposted at the different rate and a new applicant pool
should be considered."
The "Management's response" from SWT included in the report was:
"With respect to hiring individuals at salaries higher than posted,
SWT agrees to incorporate the recommendations into its procedures."
It was brought to the Senate's attention that a new hire in the
Library, responding to our ad offering "$24,624+ for twelve months
commensurate with professional experience," has accepted the job for
$30,072. All new professional librarians (M.A. from ALA certified schools
and sometimes additional M.A.s in subject areas, as well) are hired on the
same basis, i.e. Librarian I--$24,624 plus steps for up to six years of
experience). A new hire with four-year experience would receive $27,216.
The top of the Librarian I on the career-ladder formula is $28,608. The
new hire has no more than four years of professional experience which would
have put him at the $27,216 level.
Several problems are presented: (1) In this specific case, the
career ladder appears to have been ignored and a Librarian I was hired above
the pay for the rank (and above those in higher ranks who have been here
for many years), (2) Is this legal/appropriate, given the directives from
the State audit regarding hiring above the advertised salaries and our
response that we would not do such hires henceforth? (3) Is this not a
University-wide problem cloaked under the argument that this is what we
must pay to compete in the market? (Apparently the audit found it
happening around the campus and new hires in many depts. seem to be similar
in pay to those who have been here some years.)
After discussion, a motion carried that the Senate Chair make
inquiries on the following questions and if the answers were not complete
enough that the Senate Subcommittee on Librarian Pay and Status be asked to
investigate. The questions are:
(1) Why is/was it necessary to pay more, i.e. off-career ladder?
(2) How does this affect the Librarian Career Ladder, since it
has been ignored? Does the Ladder need rewriting?
(3) How does this affect older employees, i.e. salary compression?
(4) Is this practice still campus-wide and what policies
are/are not in place to meet the audit recommendations and our agreement to
comply?
NEW BONUS PAY PROPOSAL
As you will recall, the Senate voted to roll the approximately
$320,000 faculty bonus money [This figure has fluctuated over time.] over
into the merit pot in the short run. The new bonus draft, an alternative
plan from the VPAA's office, was discussed. In essence this draft includes
several ways to handle bonus. The total per year, after five years, adds
up to $276,000 which is a little under the $320,000 faculty are supposed to
get from the $500,000 pot (staff gets the rest). (1) Four professors each
year would receive the rank of "Distinguished Professor" with a $5,000 a
year bonus for each of five years for teaching--$20,000 a year=$100,000,
(2) Runners up (42 persons) for the Presidential Teaching and
Scholarly/Creative awards in each of the Schools (plus a new Service award)
would get awards--$66,000 a year, (3) A new team award (criteria
unspecified) would give 14 teams $110,000 a year. Total each year from the
fifth year on is $276,000.
Several points were brought out in examining this draft plan. (1)
This is weighted in favor of full Professors who get $5,000 a year for five
years and are in a good position to receive half of the teaching/scholarship/
service awards. Is this fair to the rest of the faculty ranks? (2) The
$320,000 pot (from dept. givebacks) was originally supposed to be used to
increase faculty salaries which are behind the market, rather than reward the
few. (3) Teams seem to be getting a major share but on what criteria and who
does the selection? Merit (despite its faults) is more locally controlled and
more spread around. (4) What happened to the $44,000 a year gap ($320,000-
276,000) starting from the sixth year--and even more during the first five
years as we add four distinguished profs. a year?
This will be on the PAAG agenda.
MEDIATION ADVISORY COMMITTEE REQUEST (Ombudsman McGee memo)
Ombudsperson Prof. John McGee has asked the Senate to: (1) Post
the Senate office as a contact point for filing grievances, which would
centralize the filing place, since the Ombudsperson post turns over every
three years or so, (2) Could the Senate office (JCK880) be used as a
meeting room for hearings, (3) There was a question about the copying
costs grievants ask to be covered (given the Ombudsperson's office has no
budget). A motion was passed to allow the Senate office to be used as the
clearinghouse for grievances and for mediation meetings, and to request
grievants to provide their own copies of documents relevant to their cases.
SAN MARCOS BAR-CLOSING HOURS (Bishop memo)
A memo was received from Prof. Bishop via Prof. Pascoe asking the
Senate to take a stand on 2:00 a.m. bar closings in San Marcos. The Senate
agreed to thank Prof. Bishop for her memo and to ask her to send her
thoughts along to ADEPT. The City Council has recently denied late bar
openings, but it may come up again. Many senators agreed that SWT did not
need to extend its party image to bring in surrounding community youth. At
the same time, there was agreement that regulating local business was
perhaps beyond our purview.
PARKING APPEALS COMMITTEE
A prof. from Education and an alternate were proposed as an
appointee to the Committee. The Senate will ask the nominee or alternative
to respond.
PAAG AGENDA ITEMS
The following items will be on next week's agenda:
(1) The Regents' Drug Use Policy
(2) Bonus Pay Draft Proposal
(3) Faculty Workload and SCHs: The Senate sees these two items as
"inextricably intertwined." (See discussion in minutes of 9/18/96.)
NEW BUSINESS
(1) Expansion of Senate Agenda topics: Chair Bible noted that the
agendas sent to all faculty will now include a little more explanation of
agenda items, as per some recent requests.
(2) Prof. Sawey distributed a draft of the FAC evaluation
questionnaire. Senators were asked to e-mail their critiques of the draft
by Monday.
(3) The salary/merit increase data are now in electronic format.
The Senate agreed that this information could be put on the Senate's
website.
(4) Prof. Simpson was asked to visit with the chair of the Faculty
Governance Committee regarding faculty governance practices in depts.
(5) A new handout from Prof. Jon McGee regarding the mini-mester
was distributed. (Prof. Raffeld and Assoc. VP Smallwood will visit with us
later on this topic.)
(6) We received a report that most of the Tarsitano grievances
have been settled.
(7) The Post-tenure Review Committee has had their first meeting.
The first thing to be done is to collect benchmark evaluation plans from
other universities.
APPROVAL OF 10/23/96 MINUTES
The minutes were approved.
The meeting was adjounred at 5:55 pm
Ramona Ford
Secretary
