Salary and raises, how are these calculated?

[AJ_Katz]

Hi all, salary records are publicly available for each person at my institution.  Due to budget cuts, there were no raises this year, with the exception of promotions.  Within my department, one person was promoted this year.  That person and I were hired in the same year, although I was granted early tenure last year.  In the years prior, my raises out-paced this person, while in the current year, this person was promoted and now has a salary higher than mine.  This year, I received my all-time highest performance rating out of all of my years of service.  As several of you know from my other thread, the department head is somewhat new and was responsible for the most recent three raises, although the first of those three was very early on in his appointment. 

I just wonder, what is going on here?  How is it that someone behind me in salary increases is promoted and receives a salary increase that surpassed my years of out-paced increases?  There must be a logical explanation about how the size of the salary increase at the time of promotion is calculated that I am unaware of.  And perhaps if there would have been normal raises for the rest of us this year, my salary would have increased to the same salary that my colleague now has. 

[ciao_yall]

Hi all, salary records are publicly available for each person at my institution.  Due to budget cuts, there were no raises this year, with the exception of promotions.  Within my department, one person was promoted this year.  That person and I were hired in the same year, although I was granted early tenure last year.  In the years prior, my raises out-paced this person, while in the current year, this person was promoted and now has a salary higher than mine.  This year, I received my all-time highest performance rating out of all of my years of service.  As several of you know from my other thread, the department head is somewhat new and was responsible for the most recent three raises, although the first of those three was very early on in his appointment. 

I just wonder, what is going on here?  How is it that someone behind me in salary increases is promoted and receives a salary increase that surpassed my years of out-paced increases?  There must be a logical explanation about how the size of the salary increase at the time of promotion is calculated that I am unaware of.  And perhaps if there would have been normal raises for the rest of us this year, my salary would have increased to the same salary that my colleague now has.

Ask HR.

[Ruralguy]

I would conclude that there is a reason, but not necessarily a logical one, or one that can be "reverse engineered" without more information.

My advice: leave alone unless you want to be overwhelmed by resentment.

[Parasaurolophus]

Perhaps they leveraged an outside offer?

I have to say, the salary scale at my institution isn't great (we're the lowest paid faculty in the country, in one of the highest COL cities in the world), but I'm glad it avoids situations like this one. Everyone knows exactly where they stand, when they'll get raises (go up a step on the scale), etc., and there's no weird salary compression between new- and old-timers.

[AJ_Katz]

I would conclude that there is a reason, but not necessarily a logical one, or one that can be "reverse engineered" without more information.

My advice: leave alone unless you want to be overwhelmed by resentment.

Very good points.  I mean, really, what could anyone possibly do about this anyway?  Complaining about these kinds of things doesn't look good for the person making the complaint, so I agree that there's no reason to hold resentment over it.  However, I did want to make sure that I wasn't missing something completely obvious about how the system works that would have easily explained this. 

[Cheerful]

However, I did want to make sure that I wasn't missing something completely obvious about how the system works that would have easily explained this.

With time, you will realize how completely obvious and easily-explained "the system" is -- it is not all merit-based.  As Parasaurolophus noted, an outside offer is one of several possibilities.

[Vkw10]

Percentage increases, compounded over a different number of years, may be the explanation.

Suppose A starts at a salary of 50,000 and receives a 5% increase annually for 4 years, receives a 10% increase in year 5 when A promotes, then receives no increase in year 6. A's salary in year 6 is $66,852.84.

Suppose B starts with salary of 50,000, receives 4% a year for 5 years, then receives 10% in year 6 upon promotion. B's salary in year 6 is $66,915.92.

Try playing with a loan comparison calculator , like https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/mortgages/loan-comparison-calculator, to develop a feel for how varying percentage and time changes outcomes due to compounding.

[Ruralguy]

Is the published info contracted salary only, or does it include any compensation by the college (anything from college that appears on W2)?

If the second, then the person could have just gotten more compensation for extra duties or internal grants, etc..  If just base salary, then some combo of  vkw's explanation and/or an extra bump due to an external offer makes sense.

[AJ_Katz]

Published salary is base pay only.  I did some calculations and it seems likely that the freeze in raises (other than promotion raises) could be to blame here.  If I would have received a received a 3.06% salary increase (which, I admit is high given it is usually closer to 2.5%), my salary and this person's salary would now be the same.  So, one possible explanation is that the department head was planning to give this faculty member a raise that would bring their salary up to the equivalent of mine, but once the freeze on regular raises was implemented, it caused a salary inversion instead.   

[polly_mer]

However, I did want to make sure that I wasn't missing something completely obvious about how the system works that would have easily explained this.

With time, you will realize how completely obvious and easily-explained "the system" is -- it is not all merit-based.  As Parasaurolophus noted, an outside offer is one of several possibilities.

How far below norm was the other person's salary?  When the project to adjust salaries to be more in line with the institutional comparison group was announced, most faculty were excited that something was finally being done.  When, however, the moves started being made, most faculty were very annoyed to watch the lowest-for-good-reason folks get big pay increases to bring them up to not nearly as pitiful (one person was making 15% of the comparison median) with no money left to bring the "deserving" underpaid-compared-to-external-peers folks up to comparison median or better.  In some cases, fixing the longest serving, underpaid people did make them better paid than others who were sure they were more deserving.  No one left, though, because all the people who really were competitive for those external better paying jobs had left years before.

[AJ_Katz]

How far below norm was the other person's salary?

I would not say their salary was below norm.  However, the amount of increase due to the promotion was on the very high end of what I have seen across our college, while my promotion increase last year was equivalent to others in years past have had.

I'm trying really hard to "check" myself and not become paranoid about our department head, but based upon his past comments, I just get the feeling that some of this is because he is more sympathetic to men who have a family and kids and it's not merit-based (I'm the youngest faculty member, female, no kids).  At the end of the day, our salaries pale in comparison to what our counterparts make in industry...  a couple of my recent grads got offers that were above what I am currently making.  So, it's not about the money, it's probably just due to those comments that he's made in the past making me suspicious (paranoid?) of his actions now.  :(

[polly_mer]

Ah.  I don't know about the disparate impacts regarding family situations.

I have seen some interesting situations where being in the right place at the time when the leaders started to panic on retention and recruitment has led to larger-than-normal raises and offers.  Those were indeed situations where new BS graduates made more than tenured full professors because employers are having trouble finding even minimally qualified people willing to work in the industry.  We're up to paying postdocs $80-90k for that reason.

[Ruralguy]

We only publish very limited data concerning medians at each rank. That's it. The claim is that "publishing highs and lows or categorizing by gender/race, etc. could effectively identify the individuals involved." Yeah, most likely its going to identify the fact that the Dean gave one of those individuals almost double everyone else's salary, and now, a few years in, they only show up for classes, then go home an hour away to do research. They never do much service. This has happened more than once.

Anyway, I still do my job and try to justify every tack-on to base I can get that doesn't waste my time.

Since you have access to the data, record this information and keep an eye on it. If a pattern develops, then perhaps you can do something about. More likely, you'll just have to justify getting yourself more pay somehow.

Or, just forget about it. This is much worse than my case, because I just have a very general resentment for salary determinations, but you might start harboring very targeted resentments. That can be very bad.

Maybe a combo of both is the best course of action...record the info, try to understand what led to the discrepancy without whispering around too much, then just move on, and if happens again, record again, and see if there is anything that can be done.

[AJ_Katz]

Thanks to both, polly_mer and Ruralguy for your follow-up comments.  There is likely outside information about this situation that I'm simply not privy to.  And you make good points, Ruralguy, that these kinds of differences in salary will always be there.  At any rate, I will probably keep some of my own records, if only as a means to help me process and let go of it.  I also appreciate this forum for being a place to anonymously discuss these things.

[apl68]

Thanks to both, polly_mer and Ruralguy for your follow-up comments.  There is likely outside information about this situation that I'm simply not privy to.  And you make good points, Ruralguy, that these kinds of differences in salary will always be there.  At any rate, I will probably keep some of my own records, if only as a means to help me process and let go of it.  I also appreciate this forum for being a place to anonymously discuss these things.

One thing to remember is that department heads often have multiple factors to take into account.  I'm in effect a department head where I work.  I can make recommendations for pay increases for library staff members.  My recommendations bear weight, but I don't get to make the final decision on any of them.  When making my recommendations I have to consider things like seniority, salary compression (Our salaries are so low in general that changes to state minimum wage laws have a real impact), what it takes to attract the people you want, fairness, etc.  Plus the art of the possible--what do our finances look like for next year, and how likely is the current Board of Trustees to listen to any pleas for better staff pay? 

Whoever makes decisions regarding salaries in your department probably has a similar range of factors to consider.  And that's without also including any casual remarks that the decision maker may have made that could potentially be interpreted in a different way than intended.  These probably go a long way toward explaining seemingly arbitrary or unfair salary decisions.