Dear Colleagues:

We have published a salary survey every year since 1976. The only exceptions have been the years without raises, and there have been too many of those, especially the last three years. All UI faculty and administrative salaries are available at www.webs.uidaho.edu/ipb/BudgetBooksFY05/SalaryrecMid05.pdf, so we will not be providing hard copies this year.

Doing Much More with Much Less

The UI Office of Institutional Research and Assessment describes our current situation in stark terms: "In spite of increasing enrollments, there are approximately 100 fewer instructional faculty members in these ranks than there were 8 years ago. The total salary outlay for these faculty, about $29 million dollars, has changed very little during this time period, as the increase in salaries has been almost exactly offset by reduction in numbers. It could be argued that the instructional faculty in these ranks are contributing more than $7.5 million in forgone salary to the state each year."  (our emphasis)

Administrative Raises Outstrip Faculty by 32% over 15 Years

In 1995 we thought that we had succeeded in curbing excessive increases in administrative raises, but as Tables I & II indicate below, they have now stand at 79 percent as opposed to the faculty’s 47.5 percent over 15 years. During the period 1990-1995 raises for the higher administration rose by 21.34 percent compared to 16.5 percent for faculty. For the year 1995-96 they rose only 2.33 percent, about 3 percent lower than the faculty. Since 1995 faculty raises have increased 31 percent while top administrators gained a whopping 58 percent.

In 1972 new assistant professors made $10,000 and President Ernest Hartung made $30,000. When President Richard Gibb hired in 1977, his salary had risen to four times that of entry level faculty. Faculty complaints became more vocal when Elizabeth Zinser’s FY 94 salary was $125,039, five times entry level salaries. Zinser promised that her "high tide" wage would float all faculty boats, but instead our boats have been swamped.

White’s $270,005 is a 108 percent increase over Zinser’s FY95 salary; UI Foundation Pays 40%

As we paged through the mid-2005 raises, the salary that stood out most dramatically was Tim White’s $270,005, a 108 percent increase over Zinser’s FY95 pay of $130,041. (The differential with entry level faculty has now risen seven times.) It is significant to note that a full 40 percent of White=s salary is paid by the UI Foundation. The specific amount is $108,000 compared to $15,000 included in Zinser’s salary.  The UI budget books did not include Foundation money in Hoover’s salary, and those figures were not available.

Those who justify these huge administrative salaries say: "This is what the market demands, and we are still paying less than peer institutions." If faculty salaries had been keeping up, this would have been persuasive. But, as the State Board of Education continues to approve these administrative increases each year, faculty salaries have fallen further and further behind. The result is a staggering failure to meet salary levels at peer institutions, especially full professors in the following disciplines: philosophy (-40 %); psychology (-38%), family and consumer science (-36.5), sociology (-35%), foreign languages (-34.3%), political science (-33.1%), teacher ed (-32.1%), history (-31.6%), business (-31.5%), civil engineering (-29.9), ag economics (-29.6), mechanical engineering (-29.2%),theatre arts (-28.7%), theatre arts (-28.7%), accounting (-28.5%) and chemistry (-26.7%),  journalism (-26.7%), and architecture (-25.9%). At the peak of his career Tim White receives a fine reward, but our senior faculty are underpaid, demoralized, and disgusted.

 Across the Board Raises Before Merit Pay

The Hoover administration committed itself to "across the board increases" for "all employees showing at least satisfactory performance." This promise stands first in a list that includes promotions, merit pay, and equity adjustments. The AFT position has always been that as a long as salaries do not keep up with the cost of living, then merit pay is a moot point. When legislative raises are applied according to merit, many faculty end up with pays cuts because of the decline in general buying power.

Three New Deans and Two Golden Parachutes

In Spring 2002 the Hoover administration eliminated two deans by closing the College of Mines and the College of Art and Architecture. But mid-level management increased considerably from 1998 to 2002. Of the 221 new hires during that period, only 20 of them were faculty. For the same period the budget for mid-level UI management increased by $1.5 million. As we have seen, the instructional budget has remained stagnate.

If one reads the new raise document carefully, one will note the appearance of three new Deans of Outreach, one each in Idaho Falls, Boise, and Coeur d’Alene, each making over $110,000. This appears to be a bad precedent, primarily because these administrators have no faculty. Why can’t they be called directors and draw a director’s salary?

Not only are UI administrators paid at higher rates than faculty, some of them also get special deals. Jerry Wallace, the person who engineered the fancy financing of University Place, received a retirement settlement far more favorable than the 15 percent of the senior faculty who retired under VSROP in 2002-2003. Although no longer at the UI, Wayland Winstead has been seen in Moscow, drawing his $121,118 until February 2006. In contrast three untenured mining and geological engineers, who originally held high hopes for long UI careers, went out their doors in June 2003 with nothing at all except a bad taste in their mouths.

Collective Bargaining is the Only Answer

During the late 1960s there was a large expansion of our public higher education system. This was good for educational opportunity, but bad in the way that this system developed according to a business model. University presidents became less like academic leaders and more like CEOs, and their salaries, as well as those of their management teams, have skyrocketed. A natural response to the industrialization of the university was the rise of faculty unions. They now represent a large majority of faculty in states where collective bargaining is allowed. Idaho, unfortunately, is not one of them.

A central feature of these contracts is a salary step system that guarantees cost of living increases as well as raises above that in good years. If UI faculty had gone for our salary step proposal in 1976 (see Table III), we would now be at the top of our peers rather than at the bottom. Furthermore, faculty without "market value"–those in the library, humanities, and social sciences--would be making a decent professional wage.

Only Idaho’s Social Scientists, Funeral Directors, Teachers, and Librarians Makes Less than We Do

One year a Moscow resident responded to our salary complaints by saying: "This is what you get for coming to Idaho, and besides you make a lot more money than I do." But even among Idaho’s professional workers, only social scientists, funeral directors, school teachers, and librarians make less money than we do. (See Table IV.) Is it too terribly much to ask that we are paid as well as the future doctors, lawyers, dentists, pharmacists, dental hygienists, nurses, physical therapists, and insurance salesmen that come through our classes? We don’t think so.

TABLE I: AVERAGE SALARY BY RANK: 1995-2005

Compared to National Average Research II Institution Salaries

47.5 Percent Increase in All Ranks Over Fifteen Years*

Source: Oklahoma State Faculty Salary Survey

*See AFT Salary Survey 1995-96, in which average faculty raises for 1990-95 were reported as 16.5 percent.  This table shows an average of 31 percent over 10 years.

TABLE II: UI ADMINISTRATIVE SALARIES

79.34 Percent Increase Over Fifteen Years* Source: UI Budget Books

*AFT 1995-96 Salary Survey reported a 21.34 percent increase for 1990-95.  This table amounts to a 58 percent increase.

**Indicates UI Foundation funds included, $15,000 for Elizabeth Zinser and $108,000 for Tim White.  Foundation monies not included in
Robert Hoover's salaries because the figures were not available.

TABLE III: A UI FACULTY SALARY STEP SYSTEM (UIS³)

UIS³-7: Instructors and Lectures.  All part-time faculty would join the scale and their salaries would be prorated; UIS³-8: Senior Instructors.  Any faculty member who has served satisfactorily at UIS³-7 for ten years would be promoted to this rank and would be eligible for tenure; UIS³-9: Assistant Professor; UIS³-10 &11: Associate Professor; UIS³-12&13: Full Professor; UIS³-14: Senior Professor.  New Rank based on superior teaching and research. Administrators would be paid a negotiated premium on top of their step salary. Note: This is only a rough proposal, and there are of course many adjustments that would have to be made.

Adapted from Seattle-Tacoma GS Salary Schedules at http://www.opm.gov/oca/02tables/sea.htm.

TABLE IV: IDAHO HOURLY WAGES, 2004

Source: http://www.labor.state.id.us