Policy on Setting Salaries (Revised 2024)

Policy on Setting Salaries (Revised 2024)

The Budget Office of the College will comply with Faculty and Librarian Salary (ACA-28) with one further restriction in the Bloomington Campus Salary Policy, section III.B.7 subsections A and B. Allocation of salary resources among units at the campus and school level: if differential salary awards to units are made, the information will be made available to chairs, directors, and CPC. This policy reaffirms the primacy of merit in setting salaries but that salary setting should also consider cost of living adjustments.

1. The College’s elected Policy Committee will serve as the Dean’s consultative committee as required by UFC policy.
2. The unit administrator will ensure that their department or program in the College has, and makes use of, a consultative committee to advise the unit's responsible administrator regarding the allocation of resources. Such a committee should be fully elected for a limited term by the unit’s faculty unless another method is approved, on petition, by the College Policy Committee. The department shall retain records of consultative committees’ recommendations for at least ten years.
3. Except for funds that the Dean must allocate to prevent the loss of outstanding faculty, to make equity adjustments, and to provide increments to promoted faculty members, the College will follow the BFC Budgetary Affairs Committee’s recommendations for cost-of-living and/or fixed dollar increments. The same holds for the ratios used in the allocation of salary funds among units at the campus and school level set out in section IV of the University Faculty/Librarian Salary Policy.
4. To perform its duties effectively, the College Policy Committee needs to be apprised of the basis and process by which the College office makes budget allocations to departments and programs. The Committee should receive from the Dean summary data on salary allocations, and should salary allocations exceed the acceptable differential set out in sections IV.A and IV.B of the University Faculty/Librarian Salary Policy, the Dean will discuss the rationale for such exceptions with the Policy Committee.
5. Application of the merit principle to departments, programs, and faculty members of the College is bound to vary somewhat from unit to unit; but each
   unit should stipulate clearly in writing how merit is defined for and applied to its faculty, and these should be periodically reviewed. The determination of merit should be sufficiently transparent for faculty self-assessment/development.
6. Merit should be evaluated based on work assignments in proportion to assignment of research, teaching, and service. For example, research grants that allocate additional effort to research, as approved by the department, warrant reallocation of work assignment. Departments should recognize efforts where individual faculty devote time and contributions (such to grant writing for research, to department, college, university committees for service, and to professional service or service outside the university). Policies should comply with the three-year window indicated in the College "Policy on Determining Annual Salary Merit Increases (Revised 2024)" and the College "Policy on the Evaluation of Pedagogical Practices (1998; Revised 2018)." Departments should note that some evaluation methods, including OCQ-type student reports, contain biases that should be accounted for in merit evaluations.
7. In disbursing funds, departments should have flexibility in deciding how such funds should be spent, subject to the restrictions that a department’s variation from the College’s mandate should be made transparent to all affected parties and funds for salary increments should not be diverted to other uses.
8. Periodically the College Policy Committee will review the substance and implementation of items 1-6.