With salaries relatively low, MU seeks to bolster pay

Jim Coleman was making $175,000 a year as the vice chancellor for research at the University of Missouri–Columbia before he left this year to take a job at Rice University. While his might seem like a great salary, it’s below average for vice-chancellor positions at comparable universities, MU Provost Brian Foster said, making it difficult for MU to fill Coleman’s shoes.
   
About a year ago, Foster also compared MU deans’ salaries to those of their counterparts at other universities and found that just one or two of the deans at MU had salaries approaching the median. Most were near the bottom.
   
“We have very uncompetitive salaries,” Foster said. “The salary competitiveness doesn’t manifest itself just in keeping people but at least as much, if not more, in hiring people.”
   
After a decade of slow salary growth, MU is one of the lowest-paying universities in its peer group. Administrators want to catch up within the next three years, but it’s going to cost millions of dollars and will require a management strategy that leaves administrative and faculty positions vacant.
   
The university competes in a national market for faculty members and administrators. That makes it expensive to retain talent and even more expensive to recruit it. New hires lack family ties, ongoing research projects and other non-monetary incentives to be in Columbia. Since MU’s salaries are below average, the university might have to pay new candidates more than it pays current faculty members, which can create unhappiness among the faculty.
   
In addition to Coleman, several high-level administrators have announced plans to leave MU this year. At the end of October, Rose Porter announced she would leave her post as dean of the Sinclair School of Nursing next September. Counseling Center Co-Director Michael Lynch Maestas, University Club Director Mark Tiernan and Disability Services Director Sarah Weaver also left this year.
   
Foster said departures by senior administrators have increased slightly over the last two years but that “it’s not like there’s a mad rush for the exit or anything.”
   
“If you’re asking if [the reason for the departures is] pay, of course that tends to enter in, but it’s certainly not the only issue,” Foster added.
   
Faculty salaries have fared worse than those of administrators. The university’s average faculty salary is currently second-to-last among its peers, public schools that are members of the American Association of Universities. MU’s growth in average faculty salary since 1997, 20.4 percent, ranks dead last among its peers, nine points behind the penultimate Iowa State University.
   
MU administrators estimate that it will take $24 million over three years to raise salaries to the middle of the peer group. That breaks down to $12 million annually to keep pace with the 4 percent salary increases at comparable institutions and an additional $12.4 million spread over three years to boost MU’s faculty and administrator average salaries to the middle of the peer group.
   
Under MU’s plan, half the $12.4 million spread over three years would be funded by the state, depending on the state legislature’s approval of the special appropriation. The other half would come from reallocation of funds within the system. In some cases, that means leaving faculty and administrative positions vacant. 
   
Foster said MU plans to save about $7 million in fiscal year 2009 by authorizing 30 new hires—about 50 fewer than normal.