News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
The Tennessee Tech Board of Trustees passed a four percent salary increase pool for employees Thursday.
President Phil Oldham said supervisors will make the primary recommendation based on performance reviews. Raises could range from 1-7 percent.
“They’re the ones doing the annual evaluations of personnel, and so, my belief is they are in the best position to gauge who’s doing the best job and needs the most increase and who may need to be challenged a little bit,” Oldham said.
The salary raises closely follow staff and employees received last year. Trustee Johnny Stites said that process served as a reminder to the university on how raises should be conducted.
“The Governor signed a bill that said we would pay all state employees based on performance, so it would be woefully unfair for us not to make sure that happened in all the departments,” Stites said. “So if anybody just goes through and gives everybody fours, that should be highly scrutinized.”
Oldham said an overall analysis will follow after percentages are submitted to prevent anomalies that may have occurred in the past.
“What really helps in this situation is to have multiple eyes looking over this,” Oldham said. “What I do ask is that each level once raise recommendations are put forward, the next level of supervision takes a look at that with that supervisor and says ‘Okay does that make sense? Is this legitimate?’ and ask those tough questions.”
Trustee Dan Allcott gave a faculty perspective to the discussion. Allcott said other factors play a role in evenly dispersed raises.
“This is a challenge, because if you do have a department where the teaching is at a level let’s say English Comp, you have a lot of people teaching a lot of students a lot of the time,” Allcott said. “Well they’re not going to maybe have the time to get grants that are high profile but they are doing a good job because the rest of us in the university need those students to be able to write.”
Oldham agreed with Alcott’s point and said that’s why philosophically departments should make the decision.
The raises depend on the future of Governor Bill Lee’s budget. If the legislature passes the budget, the state would pay $2.2 million with a $1.6 million university match.
