Compensation Task Force

December 3, 2003

The compensation of the University’s senior administration, faculty and staff has been at the center of attention of written and verbal communication over the past two months. I have read what has been written, talked to individuals and groups of faculty and staff, to elected representatives and informal leaders, and listened to everyone, including the members of the faculty who met with the Board’s Executive Committee on November 24. As a result, I have made specific recommendations and the Board of Trustees has agreed to move forward in two ways to begin to address this concern.

• First, I am creating an Ad Hoc Task Force to review the University’s compensation history and practices for faculty, non-union staff and administration. The Task Force will comprise 12 individuals from the University community: four members drawn from the Faculty Rights and Welfare Committee, four members drawn from the leadership of the Professional Administrative Senate and four members of the administration.

The Task Force review will start with both the June 2001 Salary Study that was prepared by the administration in collaboration with the Faculty Rights and Welfare Committee and the leadership of PAS and the 2001 study conducted by Deloitte & Touche on the compensation of the senior administrative staff. The June 2001 Salary Study resulted in the three-year plans to provide equalization funding to the faculty and salary adjustments to the professional staff, which will be completed this fiscal year.

The purpose of the Task Force’s review is to evaluate the progress made toward reaching the goals outlined in each of the studies, to determine the level of parity that exists between FDU’s faculty, non-union staff and senior administration as it relates to both internal and external peer groups, and to recommend a course of action that will create a sense of fairness in the compensation for these three groups. I also will ask the Task Force to develop a recommendation on what it believes is the appropriate external peer group for future compensation comparisons. I would like there to be as much overlap as possible in the peer groups used for faculty, staff and administration. I will ask the Task Force to complete its work by February 1. This will enable me to review the recommendations and to bring them to the meeting of the Board’s Executive Committee scheduled for February 9. It also will allow sufficient time for the recommendations of the Task Force to be considered in development of the FY 2005 budget.

• Second, there will be no further salary and compensation increases for University Officers pending the findings and recommendations of the Task Force. As we move forward, I will continue to update the University community in a timely fashion on this and other issues. Working together we will resolve these concerns and build a stronger University.