University of Maine Program to Help with Raises

The human resources office and chancellor of the University of Maine are satisfied with the system that the University of Maine has set up, which would include a $7 million increase in workers’ salaries for the past few years. While they are satisfied, they have made a few suggestions to change a few things that they have set up for the system. The human resources office showed their report, with a few adjustments that have been made to the program.

The Chancellor, James Page, chose to freeze the pay increase while the system is still under review, since the Portland Press Herald made a report about several of the employees at the University of Southern Maine who received thousands of dollars in raises, even though the fiscal year was not nearly as strong as it should have been. The system also released information that showed nearly $7 million in salary increased had been given to the employees over the past few years, about seven years to be exact. Over a thousand employees received different sized raises, some of which were as small as 5 percent while some raises were as large as 63 percent. Many of the salaries were awarded to the employees by the Salaried Employee Compensation and Classification Program. The program helps non-faculty employees who receive salaries to have the position they are working in reviewed, ultimately to find out whether they deserve a higher salary or not.

There are more than 350 less fulltime positions available than there were back in 2007. It is believed that the Great Recession is partly to blame, as the recession caused the economy to crash and because of that, the job market seemed to fall apart as well. While those jobs were cut, it basically meant that other employees had to take on other responsibilities, more responsibilities than their actual job position entailed. Many of these people are performing more duties but receiving less pay, which is why raises are needed.

With the 1,019 raises, about 22 percent of those raises were for over 20 percent of a raise, compared to the employees starting salary. A 20 percent raise is definitely a large increase but it is appropriate if one person is responsible for multiple tasks, more so than they expected when first taking on the position and find out about the duties they would be responsible for.

The human resources office also recommended that some university officials, most of whom are at the level of the dean or even higher, should receive more scrutiny when it comes down to the promotions they receive and whether or not they receive an increase in their annual salary. They know it is important to recognize and also reward employees for their performance but there should be some sort of accountability as well. In the meantime, the officials are also working on making other improvements in different aspects, which includes the payroll system.