Salaries and fringe benefits comprise nearly 60% of total operating expenses.* To ensure that the University is able to meet its short and long-term goals, it is important that spending in these two areas, in particular, remain within the approved budget. The current policy regarding staff salaries is as follows:
- All increases to salary expense (including new positions, promotions/upgrades, equity increases, etc.) must be approved by the division VP and covered by a permanent reduction for the total cost including fringe benefit expenses within the division or by funds from the VP holding account.
- Vacancy savings are temporary and are not for use by individual cost centers or divisions. The only exception is to offset temporary help expense directly related to a vacancy until it is filled. They cannot be used to fund new positions or other permanent salary increases, or to offset overages in supply & general expenses.
- Human Resources checks salaries for new position requests against the budget during the hiring process to ensure that they are covered on the front-end. The Office of Financial Operations also reviews all position requests that result in a change to the original position budget. Approval by Finance is required for all position budget changes to ensure that any budget increases are offset elsewhere within the division's salary budget. If a vacancy is to be filled at a higher salary than budgeted or an unbudgeted add-to-staff is requested, and the VP is unable to offer substitute funds immediately, it must be approved by the CFO/VP Business & Finance. If approved, an entry is made to his/her holding account. It is expected that any negative balances in this account will be cleared before year-end, or the funds may be taken from the division's available merit pool for the following year.
- Credit balances in the holding account will be carried forward at year-end for future use by the VP.
Any questions regarding this policy should be directed to the Office of Financial Operations.
*excludes financial aid