Where's the Money to Come From?

Elisa Campbell

The union contracts for Amherst and its major employer (UMass Amherst) are all due for negotiations this spring for the next three years. Although the unions share that timing, what isn't similar is that during the current contract, the town has paid their employees according to the that contract, and the University hasn't. During the Commonwealth's fiscal melt-down, public employees working in higher education paid more than our fair share of the cost: ours were the only contracts negotiated three years ago that were not funded. Finally, at the end of last year, the legislature voted money to pay higher ed employees what they should be paid ­ for the months of January through June, 2004. That's a good step, but it's not all that's owed. The Governor wants to treat this payment as a one-time bonus, not a commitment to keep paying salaries at the new rate; so there will have to be a major battle to make sure the state budget for higher education starting in July has enough funds to pay these salaries. Retroactive pay for about 30 months of unfairly low pay is even more problematic: legislative leaders promised to bring it up "when the funds are available." In the meantime, hundreds of people have been laid off or have retired (more or less voluntarily) from UMass and other state colleges; we will have even more need for these funds and an even harder time getting them. No one thinks the state is going to start bargaining the next contract with a generous attitude.

While a smaller proportion of people who live in Amherst are economically connected to public higher education than used to be, it's still true that UMass is by far the largest employer in town. Given housing costs, relatively few UMass employees can now afford to buy a house here, so my guess is that Amherst may now have almost as many UMass retirees wanting to hang onto the home they've had for decades than current employees. In that context, I'm surprised to keep reading references to a probable override request for $1.5 million this spring. I support government services and understand the need to pay for them, and I don't believe in bashing public employees. It pains me to argue against overrides or raises. Nevertheless, in the existing fiscal climate, it would be foolhardy for the town and schools to keep giving major increases to people at the top and to negotiate new contracts as if everyone in town can afford to pay more.

My overall impression is that we local taxpayers have done better for our employees than the state has. Looking for facts to check my impression, I spent some time looking at contracts for Town and school employees and UMass employees. Comparisons are complicated, both because there are a large number of contracts involved and because the contracts themselves have a lot of variation, but here's a summary of what I found.

Contracts in Amherst almost always include "steps": under the assumption that a person learns on the job and performs better as a result, a person doing a job satisfactorily automatically receives an increase every year for a given number of years. The number of steps vary. In the schools, for example, there are 7 steps for janitors and maintenance workers, 13 steps for teachers with Bachelors degrees, and 16 for teachers with doctoral degrees. For town employees, firefighters have 7 steps, police and public works have 8, non-union positions governed by the "personnel bylaw" have 11. At UMass, union contracts for police, clerical and technical workers have steps (USA/MTA, for example has 14); for historical reasons, the "professional" union, SEIU, has never had steps. (SEIU has "merit pay" which could be a column all of its own.) I don't believe faculty automatically move up from Assistant Professor, etc., so I won't call those steps.

One effect of steps is to give most employees an automatic raise every year - a raise that isn't generally mentioned. Add the steps to a negotiated "cost of living adjustment" (COLA) and the difference year to year can be quite significant. The figures I looked at suggest that most town and school employees had better deals than UMass employees, even if the UMass contracts had been funded.

Since I couldn't compare every category, I looked at entry-level situations. Here are some examples: A beginning Firefighter/EMT hired in July 2001 would have started at $29,212. Getting a step increase of about 5% and a COLA of 3%, that hypothetical firefighter now would be earning $34,329: an increase of 17.5%. A new EMT/paramedic in the same period has had an increase of 18%. A beginning Patrol Officer in the police department would have started at $28,973 and now would be at $34,052, again a 17.5% increase. A laborer in the Department of Public Works wouldn't have done quite so well: 17%.

In the schools, a new teacher with a BA would have started in 2001 at $28,787, with an MA at $30,944. In this contract the increase for steps is not uniform, but by now the person with the BA would be earning almost 22% more ($35,108) and the MA 21% more ($37,396). Increases for Assistant Principals and janitors are about 13.5% over three years, and for clerical workers in the schools about 15%. Of course most of our teachers aren't new hires; according to the state government, in FY02 (July 2001 ­ June 2002) the average pay for teachers in our elementary schools was $48,480 and in the regional schools was $45,707.

At UMass, the median salary for SEIU has been $45,540. All SEIU employees should have gotten 11.8%; those who earn "merit" might get an increase of about 15%. The USA/MTA and AFSCME contracts called for COLAs of 2.5%, 3% and 3% for the 3 years, and a 2% differential between steps (in the public schools and town, step increases mostly range between 4% and 5%).

I think it's clearly time to give up the myth that UMass pays well.

Additional Information

1. In these tables, years refer to calendar years, not fiscal years.

2. Most contracts also include "longevity" pay that starts after the incumbent has worked enough years to have gone beyond "steps"; longevity amounts depend on the contracts.

3. For many jobs, getting another (relevent) academic degree while working raises one's job classification. At UMass, despite the fact it is an academic institution, that's generally not true. It is very hard at UMass to get an "ugrade."

*I didn't record the information

Teacher's education	BA	MA	MA +30 credits	MA +45 credits	Doctorate
2001 Step 1	$28,787	$30,944	$33,094	$34,172	$35,250
2002 Step 2	$32,606	$34,826	$37,045	$38,150	$39,254
2003 Step 3	$35,108	$37,396	$39,677	$40,817	$41,956
2003 top of steps	$52,411	$56,414	$60,424	$61,466	$64,426

job	Ass't Principal	Janitor A	Janitor K	Clerical A	Clerical J	Instructional Assistant
2001	$52,869	$21,860	$28,396	$17,317	$37,253	$12.15/hr
2003	$62,994	$24,663	$32,228	$19,871	$42,746	$13.97/hr

You can check out the Web sites for the UMass unions yourself:

AFSCME:  
http://www.umass.edu/local1776/
USA / MTA:  
http://www.umass.edu/usa/
SEIU:  
http://www.umass.edu/seiu888/contract01.html
  (although the SEIU site does not have salary information)