UCA President Houston Davis announced 55% of UCA faculty and staff are at or above the target range for cost of living salaries at the campus talk event in the College of Business on March 20.
The numbers, which came from a study performed by Gallagher — an external benchmarking firm — also found 31% where between 90-99% range and 15% are below the 90% range.
“If you’re within 10% of the target, you’re competitive. If you’re between 11% and 15% off, that’s a possible misalignment. If you’re 15% or more, significant misalignment.” Davis said. “Translation: anybody that’s below 85 becomes something we really need to find a way to deal with as soon as we possibly can,” Davis said.
Davis also presented numbers specific to faculty and staff respectively.
Currently, 6% of staff are below 90%, 23% are between 90-99% and 71% are at 100% or above.
Among faculty, 27% are below 90%, 41% are between 90-99% and 32% are at or above 100%.
Davis getting every faculty and staff member to at least 90% was the ultimate goal in order to be competitive across the board.
The study looked at a total of 1,162 faculty and staff.
“All in the aggregate, 634 people are at or above their target already, 358 are in that middle range and 170 people that we are addressing,” Davis said.
More specifically, 129 are staff and 41 are faculty.
Davis also pointed out that the 170 employees under the 90% range is the same number of employees reported under 90% during the 2019 and 2020 fiscal years.
“The debate then was about how we’re going to help the 170 yet still acknowledge that everybody else has paid pressures that we need to be able to address with cost of living,” Davis said. “And I’ve warned everybody, that’s where the debate is going to be and it’s always going to be.”
In the middle range, there are 160 staff and 198 faculty and at 100% or greater there are 151 faculty and 483 staff.
Davis said the data set was based around the big picture of UCA staff and faculty, and did not focus on the “granular” parts of specific departments.
The overall purpose of the study was to determine where more salary raises should occur in order to get faculty and staff into the target range.
While Davis conceded that all UCA faculty and staff feel as though they should be making more money, he emphasized that the 15% below the 90% range are the university’s main priority.
After presenting the data points, Davis gave his current thoughts about the numbers and what they will mean for the future of cost of living debates.
“I think we’re going to have a meaningful debate over the next couple of cycles about cost of living for all versus being able to sweep available resource positions below the competitive market salary threshold,” Davis said. “For everybody to have a point of reference, every one percentage point of payroll is basically a million dollars.”
“2% is like $2.1 million,” Davis said. “And as we talk about creating pools for 2% cost of living, that’s creating a pool of $2.1 million.”
Davis said the $2.1 million will not just revolve around salary increases, but also compensation for faculty and staff.
“I think we’re going to be having a lot of conversations about [how] there are a lot of positions that fall under the compensation umbrella,” Davis said.
Davis then discussed how UCA does 10% retirement compensation along with ¾ of insurance premiums to further supplement the debate about how and to what policies money is applied.
“But if you’re a person here that’s not on our health benefit plan, you’d probably rather see that dollar funneling toward the pay pool,” Davis said. “Those are the policy conversations and thank goodness we’re in a great position to be able to have those conversations.”
Davis also said “Going back to reality, there’s probably $2.1 or $2.2 million that can be in this new money for salaries and benefits. That likely is pretty true next year. So do we have a conversation about [whether] we want 50 cents of that going towards the salary plan or 50 cents to COLA (cost of living adjustment).”
“People vote for their interests. That’s true for every aspect of society. I know where folks are likely going to fall in and I know our representative bodies. They’re going to be looking out for everybody,” Davis said.
Once the study’s data is finalized, every faculty and staff member will receive an email memo describing the context of the study, the work that was done and where each person currently is on the target range.
“I want to make sure everybody has that at hand because that’s only fairness,” Davis said. “I can also promise you this, it’s one data point. That’s why we have to consider the totality.”
Davis said while those under 90% are still a work in progress for the university, the numbers are down from previous years, in which there were faculty and staff sitting at 74-75% on the cost of living scale.
“The reality is to close that gap to 90%, I mean we’re still working on it, but we’re only talking about $2, $3 million. Now, $2-3 million is a lot of money, but that’s not an insurmountable amount of money,” Davis said. “We know we’re a lot closer than we even thought this time last year — when my thought was it was going to take $8, $9 or $10 million to be able to get there.”
Davis attributed this to plans made at the Board of Trustees meeting in May 2023 to set up three consecutive years of pools to attempt 2% cost of living adjustments for all employees.
The data collected from the study will be presented to the Board of Trustees at its meeting on May 29, Davis said.
