Employees Request Increases in Salaries From Tuition Money

The UNC-CH Employee Forum passed a resolution Wednesday morning asking the task force to allot some of the money brought in by the proposed tuition hike for employee salary increases. In the 2002-03 fiscal budget passed this year by the N.C. General Assembly, state staff received no pay increases.

In an address to the forum at the start of the meeting, Chancellor James Moeser said, "Staff and faculty salaries need to be a priority in the next legislation."

UNC-CH staff salaries are significantly lower than market value, and members of the forum hope their resolution will bring about action to resolve the problem.

At the Oct. 31 meeting of the task force, the issue of using tuition dollars for staff salaries was discussed.

But at that meeting, Provost Robert Shelton said the UNC-system Board of Governors had made it clear that it doesn't want to address staff salaries with tuition increases.

And while Shelton said he's sympathetic to the needs of the staff, he said it is important to submit a proposal the BOG could seriously consider.

Last year, Appalachian State University proposed a similar use of tuition funding to the BOG, which rejected the proposal. Although the results weren't positive, ASU set a precedent for requesting tuition funds to pay staff salaries.

The task force is looking at tuition increase proposals of anywhere between $200 and $600 for three consecutive years -- all of which would earmark portions of the funds for various uses, like increasing faculty salaries.

Just to make it to the BOG, the forum's resolution still needs to be accepted by the task force and the UNC-CH Board of Trustees, a tall order considering that some, including task force Co-chairwoman and Student Body President Jen Daum, are worried about writing in a request the BOG almost surely will not pass.

Daum said she's concerned such a suggestion could cause the entire proposal to lose credibility in the eyes of the BOG.

"The question is not whether our staff is deserving of higher salaries, because they are," Daum said Tuesday. "The question is whether tuition increases should go for their salaries."

The task force is expected to vote on a tuition increase proposal at its next meeting, scheduled for Nov. 14.

At Wednesday's meeting, Employee Forum Chairman Tommy Griffin said that he's aware the resolution probably would not be passed by the BOG but that he hopes that it will "put pressure on them to do something other than tuition" in regards to raising staff salaries.

Of the 6,200 employees of UNC, about 4,000 of them are eligible for routine salary increases, Griffin said.

And while he'd "prefer no tuition increase," he said that if the hike is inevitable, "We want a part of it for staff and faculty."

Griffin said that a tuition increase is inevitable and that UNC staff members might as well ask for some of the incoming money. By requesting money that already would be in UNC's coffers, the forum wouldn't be adding to students' financial burden.

But some forum members were reluctant Wednesday to ask for any kind of money derived from tuition, and most members seem to disapprove of raising tuition at all.

"Some of us have children who want to go to school here," said one delegate. "If we increase tuition, we're hitting ourselves."

The University Editor can be reached at udesk@unc.edu.