The PASC Guest Speaker Series continued in February with Marshall Parks, UNC’s Director of Human Resources. The first part of Parks’ presentation centered on UNC’s budget for fiscal year (FY) 2018 and its implications for exempt-employee salaries. Part two provided an update on the ongoing implementation of UNC’s banding project, which has aimed to streamline exempt staff members’ job classifications in order to support UNC’s compensation identity plan.
Part One: FY ’18 Budget
- The budget is dependent on a number of key inputs, including the governor’s budget and student enrollment. Altogether, the budget, and our success in meeting various targets for sustainable cost savings, enrollment goals, etc., determine the funds available for salary increases.
Part Two: Implementation of the salary banding project
- There are some employees whose salaries are still below the minimum threshold as defined by their band. A portion of this year’s salary increase pool is being dedicated to bringing those employees up to and above that minimum.
- The bands themselves will be adjusted every few years to account for cost-of-living
increases.
- The first such adjustment to minimums will occur next year.
- The process of adjustment involves assessing the market salary conditions for each of the positions within a defined band and then considering the effect on the overall group; this allows for increases in a band but provides a safeguard against short-term volatility, i.e., any sudden, significant changes to one specific position.
- Other approaches to salary increases are being considered, such as merit and performance-based
increases, longevity incentives, adjustments for years of service, etc.
- In fact, the consideration of these nuanced pay-increase alternatives is the next step in the compensation identity process. Ultimately, at UNC, as with any institution, there are limited resources, and we have to decide how best to distribute them.
Part Three: Compensation Identity Plan
- We at UNC are nearing the end of the Five-Year Sustainability Plan approved by the Board of Trustees.
- Included in this was the Compensation Identity Plan that set targets for faculty and
exempt staff salaries to be at 90% of the average salary of identified peers by fiscal
year 2017 (FY 17).
- Average faculty salaries reached the 90% target a year early (FY 16). As of FY 16, exempt staff were at 86.8%.
- Looking ahead, UNC leadership is going to go back to the Board of Trustees and recommend
that we implement a new five-year plan for our Compensation Identity that reflects
continued investment in salary and compensation. These five-year goals include:
- Move the average faculty salary to 95% of the CUPA average salary by rank at the NCHEMS peers identified for UNC in 2007.
- Move the average exempt staff salary to 95% of the CUPA average salary at the NCHEMS peers identified for UNC in 2007.
- Marshall supports the implementation of some permutation of a merit-based maintenance of effort system of pay increases so as to address, acknowledge, and reward outstanding performance.
Parks rounded out his presentation with an update and brief discussion of several items affected by developments and uncertainties in federal legislation:
- The Fair Labor Standards Act did not go into effect, rendering moot the contents of
the overtime eligibility letter HR sent to a number of UNC employees last fall.
- There is no sense this Act will return to the legislative agenda under the current administration.
- There is no requirement to use the time-tracking system described in the above-mentioned letter.
- There is probably some risk of volatility in insurance premiums in the short term, depending on the outcome(s) of the myriad Congressional and Presidential attempts to alter and/or repeal the Affordable Care Act.
- Several new for-profit clinics and emergency rooms have opened up around town; employees should note there are often significant fees associated with obtaining medical care at these types of facilities, and should be aware of possible issues of compatibility with insurance coverage.
