8/22/2011: From Dennis Thompson in the SJ:
OUS
workers ultimately are outraged by what they see as better raises, deals
and perks being handed out to faculty and administrators while service
staffers go without, Nisenfeld said.
Perks like VP Burton’s PSU paid vacation to Europe? Or Chancellor Pernsteiner’s 2 houses, lawn and maid service, and $23,120 for “professional development expenses”?
Good for the union. It’s time they started to stand up for the workers they represent. Maybe they can also create internal machinery to let exceptional employees break out of the ultimately self-defeating step system. Based on my personal experiences at the University the union punishes the really talented people and rewards the hangers-on. Too many really great people have fled the University because of the step system.
It is shameful to see the amount of money given to administrators and the waste that continues to plague OUS. The UO alone handed out something like $2mil in raises to administrators.
The waste the “chancellor” represents is a disgrace. When will the state start imposing furloughs and pay freezes for the administrators? We want to teach our students about ethical and moral approaches in their lives personally and professionally, yet look at the contradictory example set. Embarrassing.
Maybe the union will take the example of austerity set by the treatment of UO faculty, who have not had a publicly announced raise since 2008 — right?
Were the raises in 2008 publicly announced? These comments are so passive aggressive. The raises are part of the public record. Are there faculty pretending they didn’t happen? Obviously you don’t think faculty are being austere, but just say so instead of making these snide comments. Personally, I think faculty and staff deserve raises, and that there is the money to give them, so staff should fight to get them as well.
Come to think of it, the 2008 raises were not publicly announced. Sorry about that.
Let’s just say that the adminstrative/faculty raises are not exactly being publicized to the outside world. For instance, in explaining the big tuition increase this year.
Is it passive-aggressive to point that out? Then so be it.
Dog says
For the record the Nov 2008 raises were 4% for
all faculty across the board.
While the raises are not being broadcast, they’re not exactly classified (no pun!) information.
Surely the chancellor and probably the governor know what’s going on, and are willing to take whatever heat is generated. And it’s probably not just at UO. If UO really is pulling an end-run, it is hard to imagine there not being consequences, especially for our fearless leader, who has apparently already irritated the OUS close to the breaking point.
Do the raises force the tuition increase? Personally I am teaching slightly bigger classes compared to five years ago, so it seems that there is increased revenue. I guess any increased expenditure could be claimed to translate directly to tuition raises, though. What percent of increased expenditures is the faculty raise? Genuinely curious, not trying to sound doubting. We have more students, and not many more faculty, so I would think that aspect of the budget would be better than before.
Dog says
short version
under the new budget model
CAS has been the recipient of a significant
increase in operating capital due to this model in combination with increasing student population.
Hard to quantify “significant increase” but a quick estimate is about 25 million. Not trivial.
And,since I am no economist …
1. Tuition increases were nominally forced by
declining state support.
2. However, over the last three years the UO has grown by 4000 undergrads. Assume 1/2 are out of state — in round numbers tuition is 7500
for the AY for residents and 26000 for non-residents – so that’s 15 million + 52 million so call it 70 million in round numbers ( think the official amount last years was +73 million) – CAS makes up about 35% of total SCHs so that’s consistent with my 25 million estimate above.
and while I am rambling on again – our total tenure faculty line remain constant at 640 or so faculty
so 70 million/650 faculty = is about 110K increase per faculty. That’s significant – you
would think that would have higher visibility and higher impact – wonder where the money went -oh shit, I forgot, isn’t that what UOmatters asks all the time? … and yet … still no answers.
The recent posts ask questions that our ace Senate Budget Committee should be addressing, analyzing, and publicizing. I’ll leave it to the dear reader’s judgment whether they do or not.