IU employees react to second consecutive salary freeze

The IU board of trustees made history with its recent approval of the 2010-11 budget, which does not provide for staff and faculty pay increases for the second consecutive year.

“Indiana University has two primary sources of revenue that can go towards salary increase — the state budget and tuition,” said University Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Neil Theobald. “While tuition has gone up by 4.9 percent in-state and 5.9 percent out-of-state, the state budget was cut by over $29 million for the 2011 school year.”

In order to cope with budget deficiencies and minimize debt, the board of trustees has adopted the lowest percentage operational budget increase the University has seen in decades, according to an IU press release. Costs are being reduced partly by freezing salaries, cutting more than 200 staff and faculty members last year, reducing travel budgets and placing a hiring freeze on administrative personnel.

While the trustee budget is currently freezing salaries, Theobald said there is a chance employees could see pay increases.

“$17 million has been set aside, and depending on what happens with the state budget this summer, the money could be used for salary increases,” Theobald said. “The state budget has been doing better over the last several months, so this is a possibility.”

IU faculty and staff are not alone in coping with the effects of reduced funding for higher education. Across the Big Ten, similar budget cuts are being made. Last year, administrators from Penn State University, the University of Illinois, Purdue University and Ohio State University announced that all employees’ salaries were to be frozen.

According to a Sept. 30 Minnesota News Daily article, the University of Wisconsin-Madison administrators even went so far as to announce that all employees must take furlough days — unpaid vacation days — which will result in a 3 percent decrease in salary.

“This is the second year in a row that my nominal salary will be frozen, which implies that this is the second year in a row my salary will be cut in real terms,” said Utpal Battacharya, a Kelley School of Business associate professor of finance. “This is sad because these last two years have been my most productive in terms of research and teaching, and I will be rewarded as much as some other folks who just coast by. Having this said, these are lean times, and I, like all good Hoosiers, need to sacrifice.”

According to the IU factbook for 2009-10, the IU-Bloomington campus alone employs close to 9,000 staff and faculty members, all of whom, not only administrators, are affected by the salary freeze.

Edward Vasquez, vice president of the IU Bloomington and Northwest campuses’ chapters of Communication Workers of America, said staff and faculty members are already voicing concerns about how they are going be able to keep up with the rising cost of living without an increase in pay.

“Faculty and staff need to be able to pay our bills on time,” Vasquez said. “We are one of the most underpaid staffs throughout the Big Ten — most support staff make under $30,000 a year.

“We feel it is important for the University to show appreciation for the work done. Morale has been down, and at this point, any small increase would help.”