Beginning this month, UC Senate faculty salaries and the way in which they are determined will follow a four-year plan, in the words of President Robert Dynes, “designed to raise faculty salaries to market competitiveness and to restore the integrity of the rank and step system… (for) advancement.”

This fiscal year, the total faculty salary pool went up 5.8 percent, 2 percent more than last year. However, not all faculty will end up receiving that much of a raise, and some will see more.

In a message sent to the chancellors of the 10 campuses, Dynes reported that, with approval of the state budget and the Regents’ blessing, this first year of the plan will see an across-the-board, 2.5 percent “range adjustment that will raise the salary of every faculty member…”

In addition, a “market adjustment” of 1.5 percent to salaries at each rank and step will raise salaries for many faculty members. Dynes estimated that the market adjustment would “have an impact on more than half the faculty.”

Salary scales may be found on the UC Office of the President’s (UCOP) Academic Personnel Web site: <www.ucop.edu/acadadv/acadpers/welcome.html>.

Finally, merit increases, which are allocated each year to one-third of UC’s faculty, will total just under 1.8 percent of the salary budget. However, this year’s selected faculty members will not see their merit increases until next August, according to Dynes.

He added: “We believe all faculty will see benefits in this overall strategy in not only raising individual salaries, but also in strengthening the value of the faculty salary system to…colleagues, particularly the more junior faculty, and to their departments.”

The first year of faculty salary increases would cost a total of $52.7 million, estimated a UCOP background paper used for the Regents’ September meeting.

A little over $45 million is covered by the UC compact with the state, “leaving $7.5 million to be reallocated from other sources,” the paper concluded.