UW News

May 31, 2007

Faculty Senate: Planning, budgeting panel takes on big issues

As we all know, the Faculty Senate is the mechanism by which faculty govern themselves and share the governance of the University with the administration. Most of the work is done through the 14 senate councils, which have very specific roles.

The Senate Committee on Planning and Budgeting (SCPB) is the primary forum through which members of the faculty interact with the administration. Their charge is to “advise the administration and inform the Faculty Senate on long-range planning and on preparation of budgets and distribution of funds with particular reference to faculty concerns. The committee shall be guided by the advice of the Executive Committee and/or the senate on matters of policy.”

The committee is composed of 12 faculty members, including the immediate past chair of the senate, the senate chair and vice-chair, the faculty legislative representative and deputy representative, the faculty secretary and six at-large faculty members. The administration is represented by the provost, the vice provost for planning and budgeting, and a representative of the Board of Deans. Students are represented by one student member nominated jointly by the ASUW and GPSS, and the presidents of the ASUW and GPSS.

Since 2005, the SCPB has been chaired by the immediate past chair of the senate, whose experience is valuable to the group.

Although the charge to the SCPB is a general one, the University Handbook mandates one very specific case in which the SCPB must be involved — the reorganization, consolidation, or elimination of programs — referred to as an RCEP action. Here the SCPB must consider the effect of the action on students and faculty and has the responsibility of determining if the RCEP is a major or a limited action. In both cases the criteria are spelled out in detail in the handbook (Section 26-41). A major action is one that satisfies one of the following


  • the termination of an undergraduate or graduate program.
  • significant change in the terms, conditions or course of employment of faculty.
  • significant change in the overall curriculum of a college or school or of the University as a whole.
  • significant departure from the stated mission of a college or school or of the University as a whole.

Major RCEP actions call for the establishment of a review committee and a fairly complex public analysis of the proposed action. If the action is recommended, then the President confers with the SCPB before making a final recommendation to the Regents.

Clearly, RCEP actions involve substantial investment of time and effort by both the administration and the faculty and are relatively infrequent. During this last year, the School of Public Health and Community Medicine recommended the reorganization of the Department of Pathobiology and the SCPB has been closely involved in ensuring that students and faculty in this program are adequately protected by the proposed reorganization.

As might be expected from the charge to SCPB, the emphasis tends to be on faculty concerns, particularly the allocation of the University budget and the faculty salary structure. It should come as no surprise to the University community that the University has been consistently under funded and that faculty salaries lag behind that of our peers. In addition, the resolution of the Storti case has made the Regents particularly aware of Executive Order 64, which mandates that all faculty judged to be meritorious receive a 2 percent raise. The SCPB has worked in conjunction with the senate and the administration in trying to resolve the Regents’ concerns and will continue to work throughout the summer to craft a policy that will satisfy the Regents’ demand for fiscal responsibility and an equitable salary policy for the faculty.

We have also worked with the provost to achieve a distribution of funds that will improve salaries. Considering that this year’s budget is better than we have seen for many years, the suggestions have been all over the map from a 7.5 percent across-the-board pay raise to the proposal given by the provost to the Regents at their last meeting of 2 percent merit, 2.5 percent additional merit/compression/inequities, and 1 percent unit adjustments. Compression has been a major problem, called by the AAUP the “loyal faculty penalty,” and SCPB has spent substantial time on this.

Of course there is no easy answer. As market rates have increased dramatically in many disciplines, new hires come in at ever increasing salaries, leaving less money to address the problems of existing faculty. SCPB has pushed the provost and the President to make firm commitments about future raises, but except for general statements that they will do their best, the senate through SCPB has been unsuccessful.

Part of the problem lies with how the state allocates money. They tie our raises to those of other state employees, this year allocating 3.2 percent for cost of living raises, but the University views raises only for merit, not cost of living. Thus, from the administration’s point of view, there is an immediate partitioning of money into the 2 percent merit and X percent extra merit (this year 2.5 percent) categories — with X being open to question and leading to considerable discussion and at times strong reactions.

One problem with the additional merit category is that colleges and departments have differing views on what constitutes additional merit/compression/inequity and also different ways of adhering to the salary allocation process defined in the handbook (Sec. 24-55). This is a matter of great concern to the senate and the SCPB and will continue to be a topic of discussion.

Lest one think that all SCPB focuses on is faculty salary, recent meetings have involved tuition policy (both undergraduate and graduate), the UW retirement system, dependent tuition benefits, benefits in general, the global health department, summer quarter and outreach programs, faculty recruitment, graduate school reviews and their relationship to program quality, faculty effort certification, and of course RCEP.