The funding for the faculty Pay for Performance (P4P) plan is not in
jeopardy, despite the state’s and College’s budgetary issues, according
to Interim Provost Linda Curran.
Concerns over whether P4P funding would be cut surfaced after
President Stephen Jordan sent a college-wide e-mail about containing
costs on Oct. 8. That e-mail was prompted by an earlier announcement
from Gov. Bill Ritter that he was instituting a hiring freeze in
certain state agencies. Higher education is not included in the
governor’s freeze.
“It's good that the Metro State community is paying such close
attention to the state budget discussions,” Curran says.”This is a
credit to President Jordan's leadership and his clear explanations of
his actions vis à vis the legislative budget process. But the fact
remains that there would need to be a state of financial exigency
declared, and faculty weigh-in via shared governance processes, before
we'd even consider touching the P4P funds. We're not there, nor are
there any indications that we're going there. We are simply being
cautious in our spending.”
Initiative on track
Meanwhile, the P4P plan remains on
track, with the P4P evaluation guidelines sent to the deans on Oct. 13.
These are the guidelines for determining the level of P4P award (Level
I, excellent, Level II, exceptional, or Level III, extraordinary) to those faculty who attain an exceeds standards evaluation at the departmental level.
The deans are to forward their approval to Curran by Nov. 3. And the
Faculty Senate is due to get the guidelines at their Oct. 15 meeting.
Faculty Senate President Lynn Kaersvang encourages faculty to
contact their senators with any questions. She also wants them to know
that a committee that includes the provost, a dean, the P4P committee
chair and Kaersvang, among others, has been regularly collecting input
from the Board of Trustees, the deans and others and passing it on
anonymously to the Faculty Evaluation Committee.
“So the deans are quite up to speed on everything and aren’t starting from scratch in reviewing the guidelines,” Kaersvang says.
