7/13/2011:
That’s the Governor of California, Jerry Brown. From Insidehighered.com. Now why can’t we get Governor Kitzhaber’s new Higher Education Finance Board to start cutting some of Chancellor Dr. Pernsteiner’s perks? Even just his free meals and maid service?
Hey, how about the equity raises? They are not for Pernsteiner, and Lariviere is the guy responsible. Or am I just imagining things?
Our gov is too busy trying to get the lowest-paid workers to take a 5% pay cut (i.e. pay 5% of health care premiums).
5% of health care premiums is not equivalent to a 5% pay cut!
How is a %5 cut in payment of health care premiums NOT a 5% cut? Explain yourself anony. Compensation is compensation.
Suppose you earn $25,000 and the state currently pays all the $5,000 that your health insurance costs. A 5% health insurance contribution from you would be $250, which would be 1% of your salary.
I am not sure if this is actually the gov’s proposal, just my example of the math.
UO Matters may not be an economist — never struck me as having an economist’s mind, that’s for sure — but has given a lucid explanation above. (Of course, the numbers $25K/$5K are just examples.)
I’m not certain exactly how they would calculate it, but the Payroll manager I just spoke with said for me (employee and spouse), the complete monthly healthcare premium would probably include the $1289 per month PEBB premium, plus $99.81 per month dental, plus a bunch of administrative fees, for a total of $1426.88. Five percent of that is $71.34. That would come to $856 per year. If you make $2000 per month, $71.34 would be 3.6% of your monthly salary. If you make $3000 per month, it would be only 2.4% of your monthly salary. A beginning custodian or early childhood assistant or office assistant makes only $1854 per month, so $71.34 would be 3.8%. And the $1854 is gross, not net.
Thanks Anon. Your numbers show the regressive nature of the Governor’s proposal – lower income employees give up higher %’s of income.
I hear there’s a budget note in the legislature somewhere saying the intention is to have faculty and administrators also pay 5% of their premiums once classified staff is coerced into it. Granted the percentage of salary would be smaller and the pain might be smaller since faculty earn more. Still, 5% one year, 7% the next year, and pretty soon we’re talking real money….
So when will UO administrators have to take furlough days and have their pay froze? Isn’t part of being an administrator being fiscally responsible? Can anyone imagine getting a yearly $10G raise because you’re an administrator and watching your employees struggling to make ends meet?
I will not mind paying that 5% of the premium for the insurance covering my family and I. But I can see where the lowest paid employees are going to get screwed. $100 a month can be the difference between having to choose to pay your mortgage or feed your family.
They won’t. Frohnmayer and Bean tried to get the OAs and faculty to do this in 2009 – sign up for voluntary 5% cuts. Then it turned out Frohnmayer was, personally, cheating on the deal. He’ just got a big raise, and he never took the 5% out of the 1/2 of his pay that came through the UO Foundation. Then he stopped completely before long – without telling the people who were still taking the voluntary pay cuts. No one in the administration is ever going to suggest a plan like this again.
Lariviere did the right thing by the staff with the furloughs that Kulongoski imposed. He gave them overtime in exchange – the work had to get done anyway, he argued. He took a lot of grief from Kulongoski and Pernsteiner for it. That’s part of the reason he still doesn’t have a contract with OUS for himself – he’s got balls, and Pernsteiner can’t stand that.
At the moment UO is flush with money. But the state is broke. And unfortunately the UO staff negotiate their contract with the state.
The only solution is for SEIU 503 to negotiate its own contract with UO. I do not know what it would take to do that. Anyone?
In the sciences, postdoctoral fellows are still under a pay freeze, even though their salaries are paid from grants brought in by the lab head and salary increases are budgeted into the grant. Stupid situation.