For Release December 12
Regents to discuss salary competitiveness for faculty
BROOKINGS, SD—At its December meeting at South Dakota State University, the South Dakota Board of Regents approved a salary competitiveness plan to boost lagging faculty salaries. The average faculty salary in South Dakota is over $12,000 less than those at comparable institutions in neighboring states.
Regents Executive Director Robert T. Tad Perry added, "When you figure benefits, taxes, and cost of living as part of a total compensation package, our faculty average are more than $13,000 below that of faculty in neighboring universities."
Regents President David Gienapp said, "This is a troubling fact and a matter that we need to address in order to maintain a corps of quality faculty to teach our students." Gienapp also explained that South Dakota is over 20% below the average salaries in national markets, even when taking into account discipline and rank.
Pools of qualified applicants have shrunk in areas such as the hard sciences. For example, in 1992 there were 6.9 qualified applicants for every faculty opening in the hard sciences. Last year, there were only 5.4 qualified applicants for these positions. Perry said, "It is fairly clear that not being competitive in salaries is hurting our efforts to recruit qualified faculty and will only become more of a problem."
At its last meeting the Board looked at a number of options to address salary competitiveness that would increase faculty salaries by 10.7% over a three year span. Each option included various combinations of position reductions, tuition and fee increases, and other sources of funds.
After consideration of these plans the Board decided to allocate an additional $680,000 of existing tuition base dollars to faculty salaries. Gienapp explained, "This will reduce the impact on students."
The approved plan asks that the Board request that the Legislature allow all of the base adjustment dollars in the Governor’s budget to be applied to faculty salaries. Perry said, "If the Governor’s budget recommendation is approved we can further reduce the impact on students by nearly $1 million."
In addition, the plan calls for a position reduction of 114.5 FTE over a total span of three years. The FTE reductions would be in faculty and staff positions.
Under the approved competitiveness measure, the average annual student fee costs will increase $97.92 for each of the three years of the plan. Gienapp said, "The Board struggles any time increases in student costs are considered. However, we also feel strongly that measures to address salary competitiveness are critical to the maintenance of a quality education for our students."
Student Federation President Andi Fouberg said that the Student Federation supports the plan, but encouraged the Board to minimize faculty cuts.
This is a plan that will address the critical issue of the quality of the state’s faculty. Perry said that the recommendation would have several benefits for South Dakota. "This will greatly improve the ability of our universities to attract and retain well-qualified faculty and staff. In addition, this will increase the educational experiences available to students and their attractiveness and value to employers." Gienapp added, "All of these things will help improve South Dakota’s reputation in academic programs."