Inside Iowa State

Feb. 13, 2009

Council to survey P&S staff on salary, budget priorities

by Erin Rosacker

Professional and Scientific Council members took advantage of a light agenda at their Feb. 5 meeting to discuss the uncertainty of ISU's next budget and its impact on P&S employees.

Virgil Schmitt, co-chair of the compensation and benefits committee, said his group is working on its annual salary recommendation with the current financial climate in mind.

"We would like to get information from P&S people via a quick and dirty survey, hopefully with enough time so that we can look at that information before our next committee meeting," Schmitt said.

He said the committee plans to e-mail the survey within the next 10 days. The responses will identify priorities and preferences, based on how strongly employees agree or disagree with a series of statements. Schmitt shared possible examples, including:

• Salary increases are more important than retention of employee positions
• Holding unfilled positions open for an extended period of time is a preferred method of reducing costs
• Reduction of benefits is preferable to reduction in salary
• Furloughs are preferable to eliminating positions
• I would rather get transferred within the university than lose my position

"Salary issues are still important, but nobody is really confident we're going to get salary increases this year. There's just not going to be new money to do that type of thing," said council president Lynne Mumm. "We want to know what is more important to people."

Mumm said the feedback data, compiled confidentially, will be shared with ISU's top administrators.

The P&S Council will survey P&S employees to identify their priorities and preferences in lean budget times.