Salary Supplementation Survey
(8/05)
Survey
1. My institution
is public
private
2. My faculty are on 9 month
12 month appointments
3. Is there a plan at your institution to supplement
institutional base salary from grants/contracts?
Yes
____
No
4. If the answer to Question #3 is yes, check the most
appropriate model.
_ A
fixed amount of dollars is added to the instiutional base salary from
grant/contract sources
_____ A percent of the base
salary is added from grant/contract sources that are freed-up.
_____ The amount of
supplementation is tiered to the amount of salary dollars that are
freed-up from grant/contract sources.
_____ The
supplementation is merit based and set by the Chair
5. If your plan relies on a percent of base salary, what
is the minimum and maximum percent? _________ Minimum _________
Maximum
6.
If your plan is tiered to total salary income from grants, please
describe the steps that tie increased grant income to salary supplementation.
Please provide any comments that may be helpful in
understanding your institutional salary supplementation plan.
Comments
-- has
been trying to get a salary supplementation plan approved for some time. Right
now it does not appear that we are going to be successful. The results of your
survey may be of value to us in this decision.
Grant funds are used to pay the salary for the 3 summer
months. b. Faculty have the option of supplementing their salary by up to 20%
of the base salary.
Here is
the relevant portion of our department’s faculty compensation plan: Incremental
income will be negotiated with the department head on an annual basis and be
non-recurring. To receive a salary increment: A faculty member must show
outstanding performance in at least two of the three department missions:
teaching, research and service. This will be determined based upon information
provided at the annual merit review. There must be funds available from the
faculty member’s grant(s) to pay their increment. Salary increments can only be
awarded from the start of a fiscal year and will be dependent upon performance
during the previous fiscal year. The total annual salary increment cannot
exceed 25% of the faculty member’s base salary or 25% of the NIH salary cap,
whichever is smaller.
The
supplement amount is linked by a formula that includes: 1) % effort on grant (&
fraction of freed state salary support), 2) annual direct cost (ADC) of grant,
and 3) indirect cost rate (IDR) of grant (with fed rate yielding maximum
supplement). A minimum of 20% effort and 20% IDR is required on an eligible
grant.
a. Tenure
track basic science faculty are eligible for the plan if they bring in at least
25% of base salary on extramural grants from sources that pay the federal
indirect cost rate. b. Faculty who raise 25% or more of their base salary
receives salary supplements according to the following formulae: For the first
50% of base salary on grants, the salary supplement is 20% of the salary dollars
paid from grants. For example, if someone pays 25% of base salary on grants, (s)he
receives a 5% (20% of 25%) salary supplement. If someone pays 50% of base
salary, (s)he receives a 10% supplement. For the next 25% of base salary paid
from grants, the salary supplement is 60% of the increment above 50% base
salary. For example, if someone pays 75% of their base salary from grants, (s)he
gets a supplement of 10% for the first 50% (see above) and 15% (60% x 25%) for
the next 25%, for a total supplement of 25% of base salary. For the next 20% of
base salary paid from grants (i.e., between 75% and 95% of base), the supplement
is 75% of the increment above 75% of base. So if someone raises 95% of their
base salary on grants, (s)he gets a supplement of 10% of base for the first 50,
15% of base for the next 25, and 15% of base (75% x 20%) for the last 20 for a
total supplement of 40%. Tenure track faculty are not permitted to put over
95% of salary on grants. This makes it possible to spend some time teaching and
doing other non-research activities.
Most of
the salary recovered is returned to the department for distribution at the
chair’s discretion. I have typically put 40% in the department ‘special’
account, 40% in the investigator’s ‘special’ account, and made 20% available as
a salary supplement (or at the investigator’s discretion this too can be put
into his/her ‘special’ account).
To exceed
10%, multiple grants are required.
We had a
plan at one time, but it is never used, so in essence, we have no plan.
We do not
have a supplemental plan but we do have a research incentive program
The salary
is set for the year. If grants are awarded in which investigator is able to pay
himself or herself with, the institution will award the investigator a bonus of
up to 20%. If the investigator funds 100% of their salary (including fringe) on
grants contracts then they are eligible for a 20% salary bonus. The exact
percentage of the bonus is determined by the Dean.
I am not
sure that I understand your questions. Each faculty member is expected to bring
in around 60% of their salary from grants. The balance is paid by our
university. This is all effort based.
We have no
plan in place but are working to come up with one. We would be very interested
in seeing the outcome of this survey and associated comments.
Our plan
does not really fit neatly into any of your categories. Our goal is to make it
so confusing that no one understands it! We have two salary components, X and Y
such that: 1. Total salary (generally) = X + Y; 2. Y = about 10% X; 3. If grant
effort is say 50% then the grant pays 50% of X and 100% of Y; 4. If people are
recovering a large fraction of salary and contributing significantly to all of
our missions then I allow them to increase the Y component by an amount that I
decide is appropriate. I call this delta "YII" to keep track of it. They can
assign this to their grant or take it from their "PI Account" which is funded
through salary recovery and IDC returns; 5. I also supplement the salary of
folks doing special things from the Dept. sources, like running the grad
program, serving as associate chair.
About ˝ of
the faculty is on 9 month appointments, the other half on 12 month, but all
recent hires have been 9 month. Faculty can pay themselves up to 3 months of
summer salary from grants at the same monthly salary awarded from the
institution. If they have more than this available a percentage of any “salary
savings”, i.e. their salary paid from the grant and saved by the University, is
returned to the PI to be used for research related expenses, but not for
additional salary for the faculty member.
The
faculty must reduce the base contribution by at least 10% (salary savings).
Part of
the % PI effort on the grants is used to supplement base salary as indicated
above. The minimum is 20% and when no grant funds are available, the dept. must
supply this amount. Another part (adjustable) is used to free up base salary
money to be used for department administration.
Our
institution is in the process of formulating a plan.
9 months
can supplement 33% from grants; 11 months can supplement 11%; faculty with
primary appointment in medical school can supplement up to 80% (with permission
from Dean of Medical School)
We also
supplement salary for administrative activities related to programs. This comes
from grant dollars as well.
Our
research faculty members are expected to submit grant applications to cover
90-95% of their salary. Our average is about 70% of salary covered by the 30
tenured track faculty. Faculty members receive no salary supplements
All
full-time faculty members are expected to derive at least 50% of their
compensation from grants. Securing grant support does not directly affect
salary, however.
Please
note: we have an incentive program, but it is illegal to supplement
institutional salaries from grants.
It is
school policy not to supplement salaries from grants. Salaries are established
without any consideration of grant income.
Our
compensation levels (in addition to academic rank) are based on a formulation of
“merit” that includes NIH grants and indirect recovery, teaching and service.
Only
grants that include both faculty salaries (that relieve State dollars)
and indirect costs are eligible to be used in the formula to generate research
bonus limits. Each PI receives, in a departmental account, ˝ of his/her salary
return for the fiscal year. For each PI we calculate the Total Costs (DC + IC)
of all eligible awards, pro-rated for our fiscal year, x 5%. The maximum amount
that may be used for bonuses is the lesser of the 5% of TC or the ˝
salary return amount (since each P.I. funds the bonuses from their salary
return). PI’s may bonus themselves and/or their laboratory staff, or may elect
to retain any or all of the salary return in the account to support research
expenses. The bonuses are one-time payments, distributed yearly based on the
previous year’s productivity.
Well, I
have used one in most recent contracts for new hires, but we do not have
anything as a uniform policy on an institutional basis. There is discussion of
one, but other institutions in our state system have “leveraged” their state
faculty lines so badly (they have tenured salary commitments greater than they
can cover with current “hard money” budget) that there is reluctance among
administration here to consider our plan. There’s a sense that it (a
supplement plan) of some form has merit, and personally I have found it very
useful in recruiting, but an awful lot of acceptance is tied to how well (or
not) it is perceived to have worked elsewhere, and also how well (or not)
clinical compensation plans that include supplements (usually already in place)
have worked. It is creating some real equity issues. Some argue that getting
grants by a basic scientist is just part of the job, and additional compensation
shouldn’t be given simply for doing your job. The problem is that patient care
also is part of “the job” for a clinician, and they are eligible for additional
supplement, based on their “earning capacity”… so we have a real double
standard, and a serious morale issue that has the potential to be very divisive
among our faculty.
The
supplement is based on salary return dollars and on the indirect cost dollars
generated by the grant. For example an NIH grant generates a larger supplement
than an AHA SDG. But the Head also has wiggle room. Some do not participate in
this supplementation; others just give the amount generated from salary return
dollars. I try to give everything I can.
