Will I ever get a salary increase?

We received a lot of feedback in the Baldrige Express survey about salaries. Many people understand the budget situation and why we haven't given increases. Many do not understand. I'll try to explain.

First and foremost, we are state employees and general guidelines for salary increases are set by the legislature and/or the governor's office.

In years when we have been able to give salary increases, it is with permission of the state and our UT Board of Trustees. I'll address how we determine salaries in a separate post.

The state has rarely been in a position to automatically award across the board cost of living increases. Even if we had the financial capacity to do so, the cost of living over the last two years has been flat or negative. Therefore, we wouldn't be awarding a cost of living increase this year.

No agency is 100% funded by state appropriation and we treat all employees as state employees regardless of the funding source. So when we give salary increases, a portion of them and the corresponding benefits have to be self-funded, that is they come from sources other than state appropriation.

What's the short-term outlook? I'm not expecting to hear any talk of increases for the upcoming fiscal year. The following fiscal year the stimulus funds will be depleted and we'll be facing cuts in our state appropriation. So, it's not impossible, but it is unlikely that we will see general salary increases in the next two years. We'll need to look for other ways to recognize and appreciate the hard work of our staff.