KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Workers at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville may see bigger paychecks starting in January. Leaders announced they intended to increase the minimum wage to $15 per hour, plus an adjustment for compression across the UT System.
Randy Boyd, the UT System President, made the announcement on Thursday at the Finance and Administration Committee meeting. During the meeting, officials said the Board of Trustees would vote on the proposal during their meeting on Friday.
Chancellor Donde Plowman also discussed how employees are paid at UTK. She presented about how non-tenure-track faculty are paid, which includes about 500 employees at the university. She said their salaries are mostly determined by comparing their fields with the pay rates in similar fields at other universities.
To do this, she said UTK refers to an Oklahoma State database that compares salaries at institutions across the U.S. To compete with pay rates at these universities, Plowman said that the university increased salaries to $40,000 in 2019, and increased them again to $45,000 in February 2021 for faculty with high-level degrees.
"We do have work to do, we know that," she said during the presentation. "I would like to be paying what our aspirants are paying. It's the only way we are going to attract people here, who are looking at going to our aspirant schools."
She also discussed the university's hiring practices, noting that most non-tenure-track faculty work as lecturers with 1-year contracts. However, people hired as distinguished lecturers usually have 5-year contracts. Salary numbers are also generally given on a 9-month basis, Plowman said.
To pay for the $15 per hour minimum wage increase, officials said UTK could use a fund built into the budget. The university could use a $46 million fund for salary increases as well as a line built into the budget that limits how much the university could spend on salaries. The line for UTK was at $567 million with benefits.
Officials said that the $15 per hour increase would be manageable within the budgeted amount for salaries.
"The only way you would exceed it is if you had 100% full employment over every single position and spend every single dollar in every single year," said one official during the meeting.
Officials also said that it was the third or fourth year that faculty have addressed the Board of Trustees about faculty pay. Chancellor Plowman said she would address issues causing concerns about pay rates. The board also encouraged meeting with faculty one-on-one across departments about pay issues.
Earlier in October, the United Campus Workers also said they met with Chancellor Plowman to discuss several demands to keep workers safe during the COVID-19 pandemic. One of those demands included a $15 per hour raise.