THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, April 16, 1996 TAG: 9604160299
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY PHILIP WALZER, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 120 lines
Next year's 5 percent average pay raise for Virginia professors provides the cornerstone of Richmond's highly praised budget increase for higher education. But most professors will see hardly any increase in their pay in 1997.
Though the raise will take effect on Dec. 1, most state employees will get one fewer paycheck next year so the state can enact a change in accounting procedures sought by the Allen administration.
James V. Koch, president of Old Dominion University, estimated that professors' total pay would rise no more than 1 percent to 2 percent next year. For non-teaching state employees who are scheduled to get a smaller raise of 4.35 percent, the total salary might actually go down slightly in 1997.
According to estimates from the Senate Finance Committee, an employee who is making $24,000 will end the year with a $24,087 total. Next year, it would be $24,021.
``It does strike me as a bit disingenuous,'' Andrew I. Kohen, an economics professor and chairman of the Faculty Senate at James Madison University, said Monday. ``They take away with one hand, and they give with the other. We end up no better off than we were at the end of '97, compared to '96.''
The plan didn't go over any better at ODU's board meeting last week, when Koch reviewed the details.
``Who are the geniuses who figured that out?'' complained Arthur A. Diamonstein, rector of Old Dominion's Board of Visitors.
``There are 140 geniuses,'' said Koch, referring to the members of the General Assembly.
The change is virtually a done deal in Richmond. Wednesday, legislators are scheduled to vote on Gov. George F. Allen's vetoes of items in their proposed 1996-98 budget for Virginia. But both the General Assembly and Allen have backed the payroll shift and pay increases.
``As far as I know, this is going to be what we're living with,'' said Paul W. Timmreck, state secretary of finance.
The Allen administration had lobbied for the accounting switch, using it to finance the governor's proposal for a 4 percent bonus for faculty in 1996-97. The legislature, arguing that underpaid faculty deserved more, transformed the bonus into a 5 percent raise - but kept the bookkeeping change.
The rationale for the new practice is to create more of a lag time between a work period and the day an employee gets paid for it, an effort to ease the paperwork burden. Most state workers are paid on the first and 16th of every month. Today's paycheck covers roughly the first two weeks of April. But with the change, the April 16 paycheck would cover the last two weeks of work in March.
``It's desirable for the same reason that most private employers have a lag built in,'' Timmreck said. ``Some employees are going to use too much annual or sick leave, and if you are being paid right up to the last day, there is no lag period for which you can account for those type of changes. . . . It's simply a burden and highly inefficient.''
To change the pay system, the state must eliminate one check next year. To ease the transition, the state will temporarily shift most employees' paydays beginning in January. They will get only one paycheck in September 1997, and then the state will revert to paying workers every 1st and 16th of the month.
In 1998 and afterward, the employees will get the same number of paychecks they do now. They will get an extra paycheck for their last two weeks of work, whenever they retire or resign - in what one college official termed a ``deferred income'' plan.
State officials have noted that, because employees will have a larger salary when they retire, the extra paycheck could end up being far greater than the one they will miss next year.
Many university administrators contacted Monday still expressed confusion about the plan. Some wondered whether faculty members who are paid over nine or 10 months of the year would lose a paycheck next year. Both ODU and Norfolk State University pay some professors over nine or 10 months.
The answer is unclear. The state's comptroller is supposed to iron out the details for such employees. A Senate Finance Committee aide said most of the state's professors are paid over 12 months, like non-teaching employees, and would definitely get one less paycheck in 1997. Even those with nine- or 10-month contracts, the staff member said, would almost surely have to lose a paycheck next year to achieve the greater lag time.
Some faculty members Monday expressed surprise at the changes. ``We just have not been informed at this date,'' said William E. Ward, an NSU history professor. ``I need to get a better understanding of what is going on.''
Joan Dent, executive director of the Virginia Governmental Employees Association, which represents 18,000 state employees, said he's not alone: ``I don't think at this point in time I would say there are a large number of state employees that are aware.''
When Allen proposed the accounting change in conjunction with the bonus, he was sharply criticized by Democrats for short-changing professors and other state employees. By changing the bonus into a raise, Dent said, the legislators have essentially bumped up future salaries and retirement premiums.
But, she said, delaying paychecks early next year could create problems for workers with mortgage and other payments: ``Employees are going to have to readjust quite a bit of their personal financial lives. They're going to have to make some provision to have that money available'' to pay bills.
Kohen, the professor at JMU, criticized the leaders of Virginia colleges for not fighting harder on behalf of faculty. ``It's difficult to believe that this dimension of the change would have escaped them,'' Kohen said. ``It's troubling that none of them spoke up on our behalf.''
Koch, the ODU president, said, ``I don't intend to pick a fight with the General Assembly. This is what they've done; my task is to try to explain it to people and also to try to devise circumstances to make it easier for certain employees to get by,'' such as loans.
``When a variation of this (first) appeared in the governor's budget, we did object and said, `Look, this is the effect this is likely to have,' '' Koch said. ``This disappeared off the radar screens and appeared at the end again,'' near the conclusion of the legislative session last month.
The state has budgeted $100,000 to advertise and explain the payroll changes. ``It's going to be an interesting concept and an interesting job,'' Timmreck said. ILLUSTRATION: Graphic
How 5% . . . State legislators approved the increase for college
professors in the 1996-97 state budget.
became 1% . . . Because of a payroll change, professors will get
one fewer paycheck in 1997. Thus, yearly salaries will change
little.
KEYWORDS: UNIVERSITY GENERAL ASSEMBLY SALARIES COLLEGE PAY by CNB