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From: “Paul E. Jenny” <[email protected]>
Date: December 16, 2010 6:29:50 PM PSTSubject: [Administrators_opb] Governor’s Across-the-Board Compensation Reduction for All State Employees
Hello all.
As you know, the Governor released her 2011-13 budget yesterday, but in an obscure section of it, she mandated that all state employees’ salaries, regardless of fund source, be reduced by 3 percent in both fiscal years of the coming biennium. This would require that all UW employees, regardless of the fund source that supports their salary, would take a 3% pay cut.
We are working feverishly to analyze the feasibility and legality of this action, but we have updated our brief on the Governor’s budget with some information about this action and it is attached for your information.
This brief will be posted on our Planning & Budgeting website. As usual, we welcome your comments and questions.
Paul
*************************
Paul Jenny
Vice Provost
Office of Planning and Budgeting
University of Washington
UW Tower, T-12
Box 359445
Seattle, WA 98195
Phone 206.543.3318, Fax 206.543.0801
Please read the brief and note that the Governor’s proposed budget, as currently written, does provide for institutions to locally exempt faculty members from this salary cut so long as they (the institutions) make other cuts equivalent to 3% of faculty salary expenditures.
Please let us know if you have any questions.
Thanks!
Jessica L. Thompson
Higher Education Policy Analyst
UW Office of Planning & Budgeting
444 N Capital St., Suite 418, Washington, DC 20001
E-mail: [email protected]
Phone: 202.624.1428 Fax: 202.624.1429
OPBlog: Higher Ed Junction
With loss of merit increases, as well as a cap on pensions, that amounts to a 20 percent cut (about) over the next two years. We can no longer expect faculty to make presentations at conferences, meet with students, etc. In other words, we need to reduce faculty workload by an equivalent 20 percent.
It seems to me that the way to do this is for the Faculty Senate to start behaving as an independent, ACADEMIC part of UW governance. These cuts, like the mid week football game, have real consequences on what we can offer students. The admin’s job is to administer funds, by and large the admin is not academic, an assertion reflected by other posts here at TA discussing the trend at all universities away from academics as admins.
If the funds are not there to fully fund a UW quality of education, then it should be up to the Senate to determine the limits on what can and can not be taught. As examples:
a. We now educate undergrads in several different ways, alot of them NEVER take intro courses here. Is a community colleg education adequate for what WE consider a UW degree?
b. Cuts in support for TAs must limit class sizes. The admin may say we can handle students, but the Senate should determine if the quality of instruction is nup to UW standards.
or .. we can become a diploma mill with a football team, hospitals, and research labs and other symbols of a University Status.
I am really happy that you have brought this issue to light. It is imperative that the level of education remain in order to continue supporting top notch academicians at the University of Washington. Needless to say this is the beginning of what may seem like an imminent end to government financial interests in higher education. Education has always taken a back seat and I feel blessed that we have elected a president whose focus is just that: educating our youth. We, then, must be careful in such endeavors for it is quite possible that the Undergraduate and graduate institutions may be left behind regarding funding, level of interest, and other resources due to a revived interest in grade level education. What, then, is a grade level education without an undergraduate education especially in times like these? Please continue to impress upon our “leadership” this importance. Oh, and I DO agree. I am sure that you feel as though you are paid less than 100% for the work you do currently. God forbid you are now paid 97% of the current salary. Let’s remember who hurts from such salary cuts.. professor true but, ultimately it is the student who suffers. I guarantee that with impending salary cuts, the work load will inevitably increase and motivation to continue to work as hard will become…well… diminished to say the least.
-Dennis O. McLeod II
B.A., B.S. Morehouse College
Atlanta, GA
the proposed cuts to uw remain unclear to me in size or type but i have no doubt they will be substantial
so i believe the uw needs to continue to rethink its mission, assuming it ever thought about it in the first place, which is not so clear
lidstrom’s recent email to the faculty hinted at all kinds of things but it is most easy to read her email as meaning programs will be cut this go round
so it is time for the faculty, not just the administration, to take a crack at figuring out what we do best and try to guide the administration to minimize the damage to morale
no university can offer all things to all people and do a good job of it, it is time to do some serious refocusing on a narrower set of deliverables
i know that who gets left out in the process depends on who is doing the refocusing so this is a tough exercise as we are all colleagues
May I suggest you look at these posts. They may give you an idea what folks at other universities think.
Dear folks- These budget cuts are clearly disturbing and I’m not sure who is ultimately helped by these. However even putting this aside, we have entered a period where higher education at our flagship public universities will be increasingly challenged to show its competitive advantage over other increasing education options that the general public will have. Most notably among these are the online universities and companies such as Kaplan Inc. which are increasingly offering degrees at seemingly lower costs. They claim (rightly or wrongly) that they are leveling the playing field by offering affordable education options to people could not otherwise attain them. One person I know has recently decided on this method of obtaining his masters in business administration (MBA), and the main driver in these generally hard economic times is cost and convenience (he has a full time job and a family to support). While we may argue about the quality of such education, we will be increasingly challenged as Universities to clearly show the tangible competitive advantage of our degrees (e.g. perhaps jobs obtained and salaries earned by our graduates). Perhaps we have relied too heavily just on our University Brand. Dave Gordon
I think David has a point.
Schools like his, Univ Mich, are elitist. The question is whether Kaplan is really a threat to UM .. or UW?
I do not think so. Two things make us .. elite pubic schools .. different from Kaplan and its ilk. One is football. That sounds silly, but there is a point here. Elite football programs at UM or UW are part of an image, an image of elitism. Few in the public, even amongst the practical folk in our state legislatures, question that “their” Universities should offer kids the chance to play on the best possible teams.
The second difference from Kaplan, depends on another elite .. the students and faculty at UW and UM whose quality puts both of us in the ranks of the “public ivies” along with Berkeley, UNC, Univ. Wisconsin, and a few other great American state schools. As with being selected for our football teams, attending an elite school is a sign of entrance into a very competitive world.
Leaving aside issues of whether the football team serves an academic purpose, there is a lot of evidence that students who graduate from the public ivies are in a class with the best students in the world. We could do a LOT better job of selling the value received by those students to the public.
I see Kaplan as more of a threat to the next level down … our excellent state colleges. It seems to me, as part of a system iof education, UW .. as well as UM, should be asking how WE can use technology, esp. the internet, to make better use of the great faculty at the flagships to strengthen the state college system. MIT, with its excellent opencourseware, seems to me to offer an example that California, Michigan, Washiington, and other states with great flagship universities could and should emulate.
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