Ewu Faculty And Bosses Make Concessions Cutting Pay Raises And Merit Pay Spares University Layoffs In Hard Times

Faced with the loss of hundreds of students and $3.2 million in state money, faculty and administrators at Eastern Washington University agreed Friday to share the school’s financial woes by cutting pay raises and merit pay.

The gesture freed up $550,000 to spare some senior faculty and staff from layoffs at a time when budget cuts threaten to eliminate 46 positions on the Cheney campus.

“This gives us a bit of breathing room,” said Jeffrey Corkill, chemistry professor and president of the United Faculty at Eastern. “We felt it would give more stability to the university.”

University president Marshall Drummond, who has been under fire for overseeing an enrollment decline of 1,000 students while receiving executive bonuses, is among nearly 20 administrators who will not take a stateauthorized 4 percent raise this year or next. That saves more than $200,000.

“It’s a big piece of change,” said Drummond, who earns $110,000 a year.

The 400-member faculty will waive $345,000 earmarked for merit bonuses, and extend their contract two years to August 2001.

Faculty salaries at EWU range from $36,000 to $60,000, Corkill said.

Faculty also will be allowed to work this year as student advisers or in other administrative positions without jeopardizing their faculty status, to fill positions lost through attrition or budget cuts.

“This is a very selfless gesture,” Drummond said of the faculty.

LaShund Lambert, president of the university’s 6,900-member student body, praised the concessions.

“If EWU dies, my degree is worth nothing,” Lambert said at a monthly meeting of the board of trustees. “We have to pull together instead of serving our own interest.”

Drummond said student enrollment this fall may be down 800 students from state projections.

That shortfall could result in the loss of $3.2 million in state money unless the university comes up with a plan to increase enrollment and cut costs. Officials expect to submit a plan for approval by September to the Higher Education Coordinating Board in Olympia.

Concessions from the faculty and administration had been in the works since May, and approved Friday by the trustees.

Their friendly agreement contrasted with the ill feelings between Local 931 of the Washington Federation of State Employees and the administration.

The federation, which negotiates a labor contract for about 400 maintenance and clerical workers, says administrators are preserving their departments while cutting essential staff that provide services to students. Local 931 president Tom McArthur rebuked the board for not keeping the administration accountable.

“Instead of firing those responsible for our situation, the board has rewarded them with time off and several hundred thousand dollars,” McArthur said.

Unfazed, the trustees moments later raised the limit of contracts administrators could authorize without their prior approval from $150,000 to $250,000.

Drummond, who has announced his resignation effective next year, said he doubted that cuts would adversely affect students services and enrollment.

But Corkill said that the school could lose newer faculty members if further cuts are made.

“This year, we arrested the problem,” he said, “but if it becomes chronic, we’ll start losing some faculty.”

, DataTimes