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UO raises in news

9/16/2011: Bill Graves of the Oregonian on the UO raises:

The report explains the UO jumped at the chance earlier this year to raise salaries and protect quality at a time when state support keeps shrinking. The university was careful to avoid merit or across-the-board pay increases, said Russ Tomlin,  senior vice provost for academic affairs.

“We were expressly permitted to do promotion and retention and equity increases,” he said. “We focused most of our energy on equity increases, and that is where we were aggressive and where the concerns arose.”

The university, for example, raised the salary for a tenured mathematics professor from $77,000 to $84,000.

In a letter to Pernsteiner accompanying the report, Lariviere writes, “It is imperative, in order to retain the quality faculty and staff that makes this place special, that we continue to take all necessary and allowable actions to make progress on faculty and staff salaries.”

Hey – why no link to the report in the story? The RG has one here. I’m biased, but it is pretty convincing, except when they get to the raises for top level administrators. Frances Dyke announced her retirement and *then* was given an “equity raise” to $223,118. What does that have to do with retention – giving a raise to someone you want to leave, and who is leaving, thank god.

The letter references a diversity person leaving for more pay. In fact, 3 have left recently. VP for diversity Martinez was forced out. Neither of the other two were top administrators – far from it. One was recently given a raise to $39,400. The other was paid $51,750 and did not get a raise this round. These are strange examples to trot out when explaining why we gave raises to administrators making more than $200,000, with no outside offers – and frankly, little prospect of getting them at this point in their careers.

But Pernsteiner, having recently received a *retroactive* raise himself and on very thin ice with the Governor is not going to push this any farther.

9 Comments

  1. Anonymous 09/17/2011

    If the person is leaving and the raise is not for merit, I imagine it’s related to replacement cost for the next administrator in that position. Not exactly retention of the individual.

  2. Anonymous 09/18/2011

    The two administrators that recently left for high salaries left for more than salaries. The environment at UO contributed a lot to them both leaving. Diversity Education and Support and Multicultural Admissions… hmmm…. two very important positions. Nice try UO saying that it must have been just salaries for why these amazing men left.

  3. Anonymous 09/19/2011

    Lariviere writes, “It is imperative, in order to retain the quality faculty and staff that makes this place special, that we continue to take all necessary and allowable actions to make progress on faculty and staff salaries.”

    Apparently Lariviere forgot to give the staff a significant raise. Maybe next time? Doubtful. This is nothing more than administrators patting each other on the back.

    Frances Dyke got a raise? I thought we were talking quality *and* retention here. I’m sure there are, and I’m not saying in this a derogatory way, custodial staff far more deserving of a raise than Frances Dyke or any number of the administrators receiving nearly $2,000,000 in raises.

  4. Anonymous 09/19/2011

    By the way, while this is distantly related to administrators taking car of their own, did anyone catch the Jackson County official who was “compensated” with a $645,000 home loan consisting of tax payer dollars?

    Looks like UO isn’t the only place making payments on an administrators house.

  5. Anonymous 09/19/2011

    The word on the street — no way to verify, obviously — is that they are having trouble getting good applicants for Frances Dyke’s job, and she is staying on for an extra year to help out — delaying her retirement and move to be nearer her family. So maybe the raise is a good idea.

  6. Anonymous 09/19/2011

    You can’t use retention as a reason for giving someone a raise into the six figures when you know they are going to retire within the year. Nice try.

  7. Anonymous 09/19/2011

    The point is that perhaps it was an incentive to stay on a year longer than she apparently wanted to. Because the search for her replacement is not going well. Sorry, it’s an easy catch.

    Anyhow, not everybody hates Frances. A lot of people think she has done a good job. Why shouldn’t she get a raise?

    After all, don’t retiring faculty get a raise for 3 years just for signing the papers?

  8. Anonymous 09/19/2011

    Dog says,

    well according to the UOmatters poll, 70% of
    its readers gave Dyke an F. Now this is likely
    a selection effect in that most UOmatters readers
    are likely predisposed to hate all UO administravium.

    My own experience with Dyke (pre and in her current position) has always been the same: she is a good accountant but she has no operational sense. None whatsoever. Putting someone like that in charge of campus physical and infrastructure operations was a mistake and I think this is widely recognized.

    I am also personally friends with people that have left their office. Some of the stories I hear are pretty amazing. Some of it is just bitching, but much of it points to this theme of operational incompetence – much like Russ Tomlin – could give a gifted lecture on the elegant properties of an omnidirectional thrust imparter (pentagon term for hammer) but ask him to pound a nail straight …

  9. Anonymous 11/29/2011

    I don’t know any Assistant Profs (including myself) who is anywhere near this percentage. Most make well below 60k annually –

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