For your information, this message was sent from Holly Smith, Dean
ofFAS-NB, to all members of the FAS Chairs' Council, for circulation among
their faculty and staff.
Phil
Dear colleagues:
It's come to my attention that AAUP-AFT union officers have informed
their members that Governor Corzine has assured them he plans to restore
funding to higher education by funding the negotiated salary increases
and the fringe benefits. Cheered by this news, I made inquiries, and it
appears that the real story is rather different: while fringe benefits
might be funded, the proposal regarding salary increases is only to fund
half of 80% of the cost-of-living increases, which in the case of
faculty are only half of the contractually committed increases. Thus
the proposal would only fund about 20% of the total contracted
increases, and still leave the university roughly $27.6M short in
meeting its salary increases -- and would leave FAS roughly $6.5M short
in meeting its salary increases. And of course there are the additional
state plans to reduce our budget in other categories, or fail to fund
increased costs.
We're hardly out of the woods yet, so keep up those efforts to contact
your government officials to make the case for higher education. It's
also worth inquiring from union representatives how their discussions
with the administration are progressing, as we try jointly to find ways
to meet what is clearly still a very grave problem for the state and for
the university.
Best,
Holly
By: Susan English
Office of the Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs
83 Somerset Street
New Brunswick, NJ 08901
732-932-7821
732-932-5532 (Fax)
english(a)oldqueens.rutgers.edu
