SALARY CALCULATION

[Note: This section applies to salaries for teaching faculty; information on the calculation of salaries for administrative support faculty is also available online.]

Initial salaries and salary increases for teaching faculty are determined by a salary management formula. (The formula is not used for salaries in connection with distance education offerings and for those faculty offered the opportunity to teach course at the flat EOU "adjunct rate.")

The formula is re-estimated when the Legislature provides funds for adjustment of faculty salaries. It is important to understand that such funds are the only sources that Eastern has to provide raises. So, while the salary formula contains a "years of service" term, this term is only helpful in setting initial salaries and -- when salary adjustment funds are available -- in seeking to adjust disparities in the salaries of faculty with the same rank and similar years of service. The "years-of-service" term does not specify an amount by which salaries will be raised annually. Another implication is that, since there are no separate legislative appropriations to cover raises associated with promotions, such salary adjustments and those for across-the-board, equity, or other merit must come from the single pool of funds that the Legislature periodically chooses to make available to the State System to increase faculty salaries.

The salary formula is used in three ways: to determine initial salaries, to determine salary adjustments associated with promotions in rank, and to determine raises when the Legislature provides funds for raises. Each of these three uses is explained in the following paragraphs.

Initial salaries are set by the Provost, using a candidate's credentials and the salary formula in effect for current faculty. This calculation is the basis of the initial offer and candidates may accept or reject the offer. The initial Notice of Appointment will contain the bases (e.g., years of service at various degree levels) used to calculate the initial salary offer.

Raises associated with promotions are also determined by the salary formula. As may be seen in the formula that follows, each rank has a salary "base" associated with it. The raise resulting from promotion, say, from associate professor to professor would be the difference between the associate professor salary "base" and the professor salary "base."

The salary formula is also used to determine the salaries of Eastern faculty when -- and only when -- salary adjustment funds have been provided by the Legislature. The remainder of this section uses such a circumstance to fully present the structure and application of the salary formula.

When the institution receives salary adjustment funds and the Board's guidelines for distribution, the Provost shall consult with the Assembly Personnel Committee to decide institutional salary policy. Institutionally set salary policy decisions are implemented via the salary formula.

The basic formula is as follows:

Expected Salary = Base + Offset + [[(Weighted Years)] * ($/year)

Base. This refers to fixed number of dollars for each rank and normally accounts for the major portion of a salary.

After each salary increase and before the next one, these Bases are adjusted up by the same percentages as the total raise. Thus, if the Legislature were to grant us a 6% raise package, after the raise the Bases would be increased by 6%.

Offset. This refers to a market factor in a very few disciplines.

Weighted Years. This factor is defined as follows:

Weighted Years = Weighted Years at Eastern + Weighted Years at other

colleges + Weighted Years in professionally-related work.





These are in turn defined as follows:

Weighted Years at Eastern = A(aY_B+b Y_M+cY_D)





Weighted Years at other colleges = B(aY_B+bY_M+cY_D)





Weighted Years at related = Weighted Years at other colleges = C(aY_B+bY_M+cY_D)





Where

Y_B represents the number of years spent working with the highest degree being at Bachelor's

Y_M and Y_D then represent the same thing at the Master's and Doctoral levels.

The parameters a, b, c and A, B, C were determined by an appropriate "best fit" to the existing pattern. Let's take a specific example. Let us suppose we have a Professor of Teacher Education with the following history: Received BA, taught in public school for five years (Y_B=5) in "related" category; the person then completed the MA and got a job at XYZ College and taught two years (Y_M=2) in "other college" category, the person then came to Eastern and taught three years (Y_M=3) in "Eastern" category; the person then completed a Ph.D. and continued at Eastern ten more years (Y_D=10).

The last part of the formula ($/year) is a bit more technical to calculate. It works as follows: We take all of the people in the Professor rank and have the computer do a linear regression analysis to calculate the best fit ($/year) for that rank. Next, the computer does the same thing for Associates and then Assistants and Instructors.

Note that the ($/year) factor does not really represent the increase for a career, in ($/year), because the bases go up each time we have a raise--for everyone. The ($/year) faculty really represents the desired spread for each rank.

So, we now have a figure for "Expected Salary." This, in general will be different from the "Actual Salary." Because of the regression analysis one would generally expect about half the faculty to have actual salaries below "Expected" and half to have salaries above "Expected." If the model is a good one, these deviations will not be great. The computer then generates a list of all faculty, by rank with a display of actual salary,+ dollar difference and + percentage difference. A couple of typical lines would look like:

Next, we consider how this information is used. Assume that the Legislature, Board, etc., gives us money for a 10% raise. Assume that the Personnel Committee recommends a specific distribution. For example, they might say, give everyone a 5% across-the-board raise and reserve 5% for promotions and adjustments. We would then feed this information to the computer. It would add 5% to each salary. Next, the computer would look at the cumulative salaries of each rank and determine what percentage of the remaining "pot" belonged to each rank. Next, for each rank a cumulative total of those "actual salaries" falling below the "Expected Salary" level would be made. For example, let's say that if we add all the negative differences (see table) for the Associates we get $20,000. Let us also say, for example, that the remaining dollars due the Assistant rank is $10,000. (Thus, we have dollars to make half of the adjustments needed to bring those below "Expected" to "Expected.") The computer would then bring everyone half-way. For example, one-half of $365 or $183 would be added to the salary of Adams. Nothing would be added to Baker's salary and $8 would be added to the salary of Cook.

The Personnel Committee might, on the other hand, notice that the Assistants are slipping behind the other ranks and recommend a 6% across-the-board for Assistants and 5% across-the-board for the other ranks with the remaining dollars to be used for adjustment.

Since some of the actual parameters used change after each raise, they have not been printed here. Current values may be obtained from the Provost.

The Legislature and/or the State Board of Higher Education, do often establish various objectives, constraints, and directives as a part of the process of authorizing salary adjustment funds. Any such external salary policy considerations may have the effect of modifying the previously described approach.

[Responsible for Accuracy: John S. Miller, Provost - Last Verified: 7/28/00]

Maintained by the Provost's Office.