Three-Year Proposal Would Maintain Merit Pay, but Cap Awards and Create Faculty Appeals Process

CFA leaders are recommending acceptance of the agreement announced Monday, May 10. The package also includes a 2.4 percent service salary increase for eligible employees retroactive to September 1998, and would create faculty committees to decide appeals of merit pay denials or reductions.

"We are very pleased to have a tentative agreement. The CSU and the CFA leaderships worked exceedingly hard over the past two weeks to reach this point. Compromises were made by both parties in the best interests of all concerned," said CSU Chancellor Charles B. Reed.

CFA President-elect Susan Meisenhelder added, "Our board has thoroughly reviewed the agreement, and is recommending ratification to our members. This is the first step, and a giant step, in what we hope will be a new relationship with the Chancellor."

Under the agreement, the CSU's 1998-99 compensation pool for faculty members will total 5.2 percent, including the general, service and merit salary components. Individual merit increases will be capped at 7.5 percent annually, but the merit pool still will double to nearly 40 percent of total compensation.

Also, two-year contracts will be given to more than 3,000 CSU lecturers with at least six years of continuing service beginning in 1999-2000 and 2000-01. Also, the total faculty salary pool for 1999-2000 will be 6 percent, assuming the CSU receives the budget it has requested.

"All of us in the CSU greatly respect the faculty and know they are responsible for the success of our students and our university," Reed said. "I am pleased this tentative agreement, which maintains the principles of merit pay combined with an expanded faculty appeals process, could be reached."

The tentative agreement, running through mid-2001, will be sent to a vote of the CFA membership and then be presented to the CSU Board of Trustees' Collective Bargaining Committee for final approval. CFA and CSU officials said a final agreement can be adopted by the end of May.