Faculty heard an explanation of a new compensation study Jan. 28 by Dr. Daniel Ulibarri, president of Ulibarri-Mason Global HR, the firm contracted to conduct the study.
One of the goals of this board-selected firm is to establish a communication relationship and identify a comparison group, Ulibarri said. "It always depends on the relationship between the faculty and administration on the various schools that exist," he said.
District Compensation Manager Danelle Evans introduced the compensation study team and said the last compensation study was conducted more than 10 years ago. The firm plans on completing the study in time for budgeting in June.
Ulibarri stressed "collaboration" and "transparency" in his project approach through three phases of development described in a slideshow.
The first phase, which began this month with an appointed advisory committee for faculty representation, consists of town hall meetings, due diligence, planning and data gathering.
Ulibarri said the firm conducts due diligence before project commitments to provide opportunities to review resources and potential liabilities in detail, as mentioned on the firm's Web site, www.umglobalhr.com.
From mid-January to mid-March, the second phase will conduct a market study of compensation and benefits to identify best practices. One of the major steps in the second phase is to report the outcomes of a faculty wage and salary survey.
Among the potential comparison institutions are systems in Austin, Dallas, El Paso and Houston.
Implementation and ongoing support is estimated from March through June in the third phase.
The third phase includes reporting on costs, time and resource requirements of various alternatives as well as creating an overall total compensation and benefits strategy. Some of the data parameters taken into consideration are the average, median and range of salaries by level, class, tenure and rank, overload, additional assignments and number of duty days.
The firm also plans to discuss recruitment and retention issues among faculty.
Elena Mason, senior vice president of UMGHR, showed an online project dashboard sample, also available on the Web site, with the project's timeline and status to be updated daily.
Questions and answers can be posted and progress can be viewed online.
Dr. Rodolfo Rocha, Texas higher education policy and legislative consultant, referred to the city's living costs graph compared to Miami, where housing is 39 percent more expensive. "Texas is one of the few states doing well today," he said.
College programs like the two-plus-two and dual-credit receive more funds because they are "very successful" in retaining students, he said, adding it has been 24 years since a major budget crisis resulted in severe cuts for educational funding, he said.
Dr. Ellen Switkes, higher education compensation consultant for UMGHR, compared the system with the University of California, where she also consults as a project coordinator for its School of Global Health.
To increase faculty salary, there should be "true and hard" data, Switkes said.
"I was actually very surprised that the college doesn't regularly do a compensation study," she said after the meeting.
Switkes said it should be done regularly to know how faculty is being paid with respect to the competition.
"I'm worried that the faculty is nervous about the purpose," Switkes said. "These things never result in pay cuts for anybody."
Ulibarri said after the meeting, "It always depends on the relationship between the faculty and administration on the various schools that exist. This particular college, from what we've learned, doesn't have a lot of the problems that we've seen elsewhere," he said.
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