Available in PDF Format

Purpose: To provide guidance to State Universities regarding initial salary placement of faculty in the IFO bargaining unit.

Affected Campuses: All State Universities

Required Forms and Resource Materials:

• Previous Creditable Work Experience Form for State University Faculty (link to attachmen);
• Guidelines for Calculation of Creditable Work Experience for University Faculty (link to attachment);
• Salary calculator software (available in the campus HR office);
• IFO Bargaining Agreement, Article 11 (Salaries);
• A report of current faculty, by programmatic area and academic rank, which includes data on total creditable experience, salary/step, and other relevant academic preparation (available from the campus Office of Human Resources).
  

Responsibility for Implementation: Each campus administrator who is involved in the initial placement of faculty salary is responsible for implementation of these guidelines.

Procedure:

A. Prior to any official salary offer to candidates, campuses must collect comprehensive information regarding prior work experience on the Previous Creditable Work Experience Template. (Note: campuses may create their own form for this purpose, but the collected information must include, at a minimum, the data on the template). Where possible, the candidate and dean/hiring authority should collaborate in filling out the form.

B. Two different administrators at the campus must separately evaluate the completed Work Experience Template/Form in accordance with the Guidelines for Calculation of Creditable Work Experience document.

C. After the two administrators reach consensus on the total amount of previous creditable experience that should be granted, the agreed upon creditable experience, along with the following hiring data elements for the candidate will be entered into the Campus's Salary Calculator Software:

• Programmatic Area
• Academic Rank upon appointment
• Final Degree/Terminal Degree Status
• Final Degree Date

(NOTE: the salary calculator will automatically weight the experience, so actual years of experience should be entered.)

D. The Salary Calculator Software will provide estimated salary information using both a campus-based statistical model as well as a system-based statistical model. The campus-based model reflects estimated salary for similarly situated faculty in the same (or similar) program at the campus, while the system-based model reflects estimated salary for similarly situated faculty in the same (or similar) program at the system-wide level.

E. Results of both formulas will be provided to the appropriate dean/hiring authority. In addition to the predicted salary, the results will include a range of potential appointment salaries on the current IFO salary schedule as found in Article 11 of the IFO bargaining agreement.

Guidelines for Determining Initial Salary:

A. Deans/hiring authorities should compare and contrast the various supplied salary placements under #E above with other current faculty in the same/similar program at the University by using the salary report and personnel data supplied by the Office of Human Resources. When making the comparison, attention should be focused on those faculty who are in the same academic rank, with the same, or similar, degree and prior work experience credentials as the candidate.

1. The campus-based salary recommendations should be used initially in order to compare the candidate's credentials with other similarly situated faculty in the same, or similar, department/program.

2. The system-based salary recommendations should be used in situations where there aren't a sufficient number of faculty comparators (i.e., less than five faculty in the same rank) in the campus program, when the program is new, or as a means to assess the candidate's marketability elsewhere within the System.

B. The salary offered should fall within the parameters provided by the formulas. If it is necessary to deviate upward from the range of provided salaries, the dean/hiring authority must provide written rationale prior to the preparation of the letter of appointment. In no instance may the dean/hiring authority offer a salary that is lower than the minimum of the supplied recommended salary placements.

C. The Office of Human Resources will prepare the letter of appointment to the candidate and file the completed Previous Creditable Work Experience form, along with other supporting documentation in the new faculty member's personnel file.

Candidate Resources: Candidates who receive salary offers must be provided with the Guidelines for Calculation of Creditable Work Experience and a copy of their completed creditable prior work experience form with their initial appointment letters.

 

Approved: May 17, 2005