LSU will be giving merit pay raises to some faculty and staff this fall in an effort to prevent a “revolving door” at the state’s flagship university.
“In order to retain and attract quality talent, we have to adequately reward our dedicated employees,” says LSU President F. King Alexander in a letter to faculty and staff announcing the pay raises today.
Before today’s announcement, the most recent faculty and staff pay raises at LSU came in the 2014-15 school year, when the school handed out a 3% pay raise and gave each department authority in doling them out, says spokesman Ernie Ballard. The school had given out a pay raise of up to 4% the year before that as well.
The new pay raises are not being applied across the board. Instead, LSU is giving each of its departments a 3% “merit pay raise pool,” and the department heads will in turn decide how to dole out the pay raises. The state not cutting higher education funding during the legislative session earlier this year, LSU officials said, made the pay increases possible.
Alexander’s letter says faculty and professional employees will see their pay increases—which will be 3%, on average—effective Sept. 1 Classified employees will get a 1% pay raise in October, followed by a 2% raise on the first of next year. The governor and Legislature agreed to provide a 2% pay increase to classified employees earlier this year.
“Though this does not adequately reflect my and the board of supervisors appreciation of your service to the university, I hope you will welcome this not only as a sign of our gratitude for your tireless efforts to support LSU and our students, but also as an indication of our intent to invest in you, the backbone of our university, more regularly than we have been able to over the last several years,” Alexander says in his letter.
