Salary increases up for review, including the 88 percent pay increase of State First Lady Mary Easley, will go before the Board of Governors at its meeting Friday, according to Chair Hannah Gage, and the University’s interpretation of BOG guidelines was a topic at Tuesday’s Faculty Senate meeting.
Chancellor James Oblinger said he expects that the BOG understands the University’s misinterpretation, which led to a controversy when Provost Larry Nielsen gave Mary Easley, an executive in residence, a pay jump from $90,300 to $170,000 during the summer.
“It is the [fixed-term] contracts and our interpretation of how we derived fixed contracts that was not consistent with GA’s interpretation of how we should have been doing things,” Oblinger said. “In early July, as a result of our interpretation and their interpretation, we were asked to review our fixed-term contracts.”
The University had viewed each contract as a new one, Oblinger said.
“Our interpretation of contracts — fixed-term contracts — was that every contract that we negotiated was a new contract,” he said. “It didn’t need to have a break in service, didn’t need to be a different person. When your three-year contract was over, if we wanted to retain you we needed to negotiate a new contract, which our interpretation of that was that that was a new position.”
Oblinger selected a group of 16 faculty members to take part in a Contract Review Task Force in July, and the group submitted its findings to Oblinger Aug. 29 after comparing the UNC system’s policies with those of the University.
Out of 1,067 contracts with salary increases of at least 15 percent and $10,000 submitted between 2002 and June 2008, the University will submit 33 to the Board of Governors for review.
The University will also submit salary increases that came after June, but these were not part of the review, since they would need to be checked by the Board of Governors at this meeting anyway, according to Oblinger.
The main outcome of the Contract Review Task Force, Oblinger said Vice Chancellor for Human Resources Barbara Carroll headed, was an opportunity for communication and clarification, as the group found elements of the University’s Policies, Regulations and Rules that may need revision.
Oblinger said it was important that those on the task force would be responsible for recommendations.
“They’re recommendations are going to have to be implemented by many of the people in that room because they do represent the people’s side of the process,” he said.
Oblinger had spoken at the year’s first Faculty Senate meeting about the contract reviews, and Nielsen defended his choice to give Easley a pay increase because she was gaining new responsibilities, including creating and becoming director of the new Center for Public Safety Leadership.
The Faculty Senate discussed, but sent back to committee, a resolution that states that “policies were overlooked by certain administrative officers of the institution,” including those regarding the creation of new centers.
The resolution cited PRR to say “only after authorization to establish the center has been granted is the nomination for the center director sent to the Vice Chancellor for Research and Graduate Studies.”
The Senate debated the resolution on its merits and necessity.
“Resolutions in any parliamentary body are statements of concern,” Jim Martin, chair of the Faculty Senate and chemistry professor, said.
Martin served on the contract review task force, and would not comment on its findings, but said he hoped the public could understand the effects of the actions it discussed.
