The Idaho State Legislature voted in March to pass a 2 percent Change in Employee Compensation for all state government departments and agencies, the first pay increase for University of Idaho faculty and staff in four years.
Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter initially asked for a one-time 3 percent CEC in his State of the State address and budget presentation to the legislature, but the legislature modified his request to a 2 percent ongoing CEC.
UI Special Assistant to the President for State Governmental Relations Joe Stegner said the 3 percent CEC would have acted as more of a bonus while the 2 percent CEC is a raise that will continue each year.
“The reason the legislature put that in place is they realized state employees haven’t had increases for a while and they are trying to catch everybody up,” Stegner said. “It’s more to try to keep them competitive with other segments of the economy.”
The Idaho Joint Finance Appropriations Committee will fund 60 percent of the CEC from the general fund and 40 percent from dedicated funds. Stegner said the pay increase is not merit-based and will affect most full-time employees, faculty and staff who meet requirements.
“In some cases, some employees might not get a pay increase,” he said. “There might be some people at a part-time basis or certain restricted status — they might be on sabbatical — their status might be different than a full-time employee,” he said.
Stegner said UI employees ranked inadequate in annual evaluations could also be denied an increase. The CEC was one of the university’s highest priorities in terms of budget requests, and Stegner said the 2 percent increase is important in retention of faculty and staff.
“Obviously the university wants to attract and retain the very best faculty and staff that we can find, and that’s a challenge when we’re not competitive in a number of areas,” he said. “Pay is just one, but when we’re not competitive in the benefits, competitive in challenging them professionally to the point where their jobs are interesting. When we don’t appreciate their talents and let them know that we risk having them go somewhere else.”
The 2 percent CEC is one of the components UI needs to attract and retain the best faculty and staff possible, and Stegner said UI is grateful for the change in direction of the budget capabilities of the legislature.
“I would agree that it’s not very much,” Stegner said. “I wish it were more and in the future, especially as the economy gets better, hopefully we will be in a position to make additional increases but it’s certainly better than we have had for a number of years.”
Elisa Eiguren can be reached at [email protected]