For Release April 3
Regents Approve Motion to Provide Faculty Salary Increases for Next Year
PIERRE, SD-The Board of Regents met this morning by teleconference to consider the state Department of Labor's recommendations to resolve the stalled negotiations between the Board of Regents and its faculty union. The Board approved a motion from Regent James Hansen to decline the Department of Labor's Fact Finding recommendations and to impose its last best offer.
The approved motion calls for the Board's negotiator, Regents' General Counsel James Shekleton, to seek to open negotiations at the first opportunity for FY98. It was the Board's feeling that faculty members have gone too long without salary increases, and that every effort should be made to accelerate negotiations in order to permit the issuance of contracts with raises this spring (effective for 1997-98), as has been customary when a negotiated agreement was in place. The Board adopted the interim terms and conditions of employment as its offer to COHE (Council of Higher Education) for a new contract to be in force for only one year.
Regent Hansen said that, "I understand there will probably be portions of the contract that COHE might find objectionable since we have been at impasse for several months. But it should be possible to accept the contract for one year in order to avoid months of delay before faculty members could receive any pay raises." Hansen continued to explain that, negotiations could continue for a new contract without imposing an unnecessary burden on faculty members and their families by delaying any salary increases.
Regents Executive Director Robert T. Tad Perry said of the action, "I feel that this is a reasonable next step; it recognizes institutional issues, as well as faculty concerns. The most important thing is to give the faculty their salary increase for next year."
The interim terms do not provide for salary increases for the current year, since the 1996 Legislature made no appropriations for faculty salaries. Money appropriated by the 1997 Legislature cannot be distributed until a new round of negotiations has been completed.
Although the Department of Labor's fact finder supported the Regents on a majority of the items addressed, two items relating to the special schools were not addressed. Hansen added that, "Some of the recommendations that the fact finder issued would place unacceptable burdens on the institutions. In particular, it would be burdensome to limit eligibility for promotion and tenure for administrators who hold academic rank. Academic administrators must have the opportunity to progress through the academic ranks and to earn tenure in their faculty positions if their careers are to advance normally." If this opportunity were to appear to be subject to challenge by the faculty union, the institutions could encounter difficulty in attracting competent administrators.