March 2, 2016
Faculty Compensation Task Force report available for comment
Dear Colleagues,
President Schulz and I are pleased to make available to the university community the 2016 report "Structuring Faculty Salaries Towards K-State 2025 and Beyond." Prepared by the Faculty Compensation Task Force appointed last fall, the report provides recommendations and observations concerning faculty salaries at Kansas State University. The task force was charged to review faculty compensation progress to date following the completion of the compensation improvement plan put in place for fiscal years 2014-2016 and to recommend faculty compensation priorities for the next three years, building from the original 2012 Task Force report. The task force did an excellent job in considering and evaluating a wide variety of information in developing their recommendations.
As with other task force reports, we invite you to provide your comments and suggestions. The comment period will be six weeks and the online survey will close on April 13. Following the open comment period, the feedback will be compiled and shared with the university community. The report and the online survey for comments are available here.
I want to thank all the members of the 2015 Faculty Compensation Task Force for their willingness to undertake this task within a very short time frame. Their hard work and dedication is much appreciated, as is the commitment to working with the administration in a spirit of shared governance.
Please note this report's scope is limited to faculty salaries. A study of Total Rewards is underway for university support staff and unclassified professional staff. Vice President Cheryl Johnson and the Human Capital Services team will be sharing the work and findings of that study at the end of March.
Recommendations from both the Faculty Compensation Task Force and the Total Rewards initiative will be considered this spring as part of our three-year budget planning process currently underway in the Budget Advisory Committee. We expect in the latter part of the spring semester to issue a formal campus letter addressing the recommendations. The letter will provide our plans for what we can implement, along with appropriate timelines.
Finding ways to build competitive compensation for recruiting and retaining outstanding faculty and staff is essential for our future. As we move forward, we all are aware that we must balance the need for improved compensation with the budget realities we face. Only by working together will we be able to make progress.
Thanks for all you do!
April Mason
Senior Vice President and Provost