Schools freezing faculty salaries

With budgets still tight, both public and private universities are reining in their faculty salaries.

But faculty at those schools have mostly been understanding about salary freezes and similar ways that universities have cut corners in their budgets.

This month, Duke University announced that for the second year in a row, its faculty and staff would not be getting raises.

“If we would give salary increases, we would find ourselves in a worse situation,” said Kyle Cavanaugh, vice president for human resources at Duke.

Any staff or faculty making less than $80,000 per year will receive a one-time payment of $1,000 beginning July 1. UNC also didn’t offer raises last year and likely won’t this year, Cavanaugh said.

“The state revenue picture is such that increases are questionable,” said Dick Mann, vice chancellor of finance and administration for UNC.

“Keep in mind, the economy is bad everywhere.”

Since the amount of money allotted for UNC system salaries is determined by the N.C. General Assembly, the school administration does not have much control in determining yearly raises.

Salary funding is also supported by auxiliary funds, contracts and grants, which are not decided by the legislature.

Duke, which has about 300,000 employees throughout its hospitals and college, has been working to trim its budget by $100 million over three years, said Craig Henriquez, chairman for Duke’s Academic Council.

After a year, Duke is already halfway there, Henriquez said.

“Duke is going to work hard to rein in the budget,” Henriquez said.

Those efforts to tighten the budget have included workforce management initiatives and retirement incentives, among others.

But the university hasn’t yet received many complaints about the lack of raises.

“Surprisingly, the community has been well aware of the financial situation,” Cavanaugh said.

“We’ve been successful in avoiding layoffs.”

Officials are not sure how long the staff and faculty will remain understanding about the lack of salary increases.

“Most people are wondering what is going to happen in the next years,” Henriquez said.

“The faculty is patient, but it will be tested over the next year or so.”

Despite the salary freeze and a decrease in new job offerings at Duke, there have been a record number of applications, Cavanaugh said.

At UNC, problems might arise from inequity of pay between current employees and new employees — who wouldn’t be limited by the salary freezes — if the salary increases remain static, Mann said.

“People realize times are tough. How much longer this will last, who knows?” Mann said. “There is only so long we can go without additional salary demands.”


Contact the State & National Editor at stntdesk@unc.edu.