Filed Under: President's Post, Featured Articles

Dear Campus Community:

I am pleased to inform you that on Tuesday, June 12, 2018, the Middle Tennessee State University Board of Trustees held its quarterly meeting in the Miller Education Center.  At that meeting, the Board took formal action on my recommendation to approve a 1.5% across-the-board (ATB) salary increase or $500, whichever is greater, for MTSU employees.  The salary increase will be distributed to all unrestricted and restricted regular full-time and part-time benefit eligible employees and participants in the post-retirement service program on the payroll as of June 30, 2018.  Each eligible employee will receive an increase equal to 1.5% of their current salary or $500, whichever is greater.  The minimum payment will be prorated for part-time employees.   Increases for grant employees are part of the salary adjustments and their increases will be charged to the appropriate grant; and increases for auxiliary employees will be funded from auxiliary revenues.  For administrative and clerical staff, all increases will be effective July 1, 2018 and will be reflected in the July 31, 2018 payroll.  Faculty increases will be effective August 1, 2018 and will be reflected in the August 31, 2018 payroll.  Unfortunately, due to limited funds available, these increases will not apply to adjunct faculty, temporary employees, graduate assistants, or student workers.  It is my sincere hope that as resources become available we will be in a position to address these very important groups of employees.

As I have stated on several occasions, addressing the low salaries of our employees is my number one priority.  Upon my recommendation to the Board,  the Trustees approved the use of the remaining funds from the state-mandated salary pool, along with an additional $2 million, for partially implementing the University’s compensation plan.  This will put $3.7 million into addressing the gap between actual employee salaries and market salaries as reported by CUPA.  A plan to implement these market adjustments is currently being developed and will spread across all classes of employees.  These adjustments will apply to employees on the payroll as of June 30, 2018, be effective October 1, 2018 and reflected in the October 31, 2018 payroll.  This action is a major, and only the first, step to addressing this long standing priority for the University.

Other enhancements to employee compensation included approval of the recommendations to change the compensation plan guidelines.  Effective July 1, 2018, Human Resource Services will have the authority to recommend a 6% salary increase, or the minimum of the new pay range, for an employee whose position has been reclassified to a higher pay grade.  For employees whose positions are reclassified more than one pay range, the recommended increase in their salary will be 9%.  In addition, HR will have the authority to award the greater of 6% of the current salary or a salary based on relevant experience, up to the midpoint, for current employees who are selected for another position on campus.

In other business, Trustees approved the University’s final 2017-18 and upcoming 2018-19 operating budgets as well as increasing tuition and mandatory fees for the 2018-19 academic year by 2.88 percent.

Please know how much I value each of you and appreciate your good work.  I am grateful that we are able again to give some salary increases to our employees.

Sincerely,

Sidney A. McPhee

President