A UFF study says Tampa faculty have higher salaries than St. Petersburg and Sarasota-Manatee campus faculty.
Courtesy of Annalise Anderson | The Crow’s Nest
By Isaiah Sterling
A Florida faculty organization reported in June a perception that USF Tampa faculty “enjoyed greater affection” from university administration than faculty based elsewhere.
The organization claimed this perception was reflected in compensation.
St. Petersburg and Sarasota-Manatee campus faculty receive lower salaries than faculty at the Tampa campus as a result of “merit and discretionary raises,” according to a United Faculty of Florida (UFF) report.
UFF compared the salaries from 95 groups of professors holding the same job title at all USF campuses and found non-Tampa faculty members receive 92 cents for each dollar that comparable Tampa faculty members receive.
The organization said pay inequalities are not due to consolidation and cited three additional reasons for differentials among USF faculty salaries:
**New faculty hired at St. Petersburg and Sarasota-Manatee may have been offered lower starting salaries than those at Tampa.
**Faculty at Tampa may have changed positions more frequently, and as a result, have received a succession of changes in salary that were not raises.
**Faculty salaries for faculty whose position and job title remains the same for a long time tends to fall behind, and non-Tampa faculty may have been on the job longer than comparable Tampa faculty.
St. Petersburg campus Faculty Council Chair David Rosengrant said equal pay is a problem at USF.
Rosengrant explained professors may be subject to different salaries based on their past experiences, backgrounds and respective academic area.
“[USF] has so many different departments, groups and backgrounds of individuals when they are hired,” Rosengrant said.
Rosengrant said salary equity concerns from faculty may boil down to how they are compensated based on yearly evaluations.
“If you are going to judge me for tenure and promotion or church me on my annual evaluations by the same expectations for the Tampa campus, but you are not going to pay me the correct amount for meeting those expectations, that is where we have an issue,” Rosengrant said.
The council plans to work with university leaders to address salary inequality.
“There are a couple of things we are looking to do. One is talking to the people that need to be talked to,” Rosengrant said. “Whether that is the chancellor, regional vice chancellor or college deans in our respective areas.”
Rosengrant suggested solving the issue of pay inequality will be challenging moving forward, especially with university leadership’s focus on consolidation and budgets.
“It is not going to change overnight. Budget issues took priority over everything else,” Rosengrant said.
USF budgets were set as a priority during the pandemic although Florida universities received generous aid under the American Rescue Plan in March 2021.The aid assisted the Florida Legislature in sparing USF from deep budget cuts.
Although the university did not face as many budget deficits as previously planned during the onset of COVID-19, pay equity efforts remained a past principle of consolidation.
According to the FAQ section of the USF Consolidation Academic and Student Success Implementation Handbook released in early 2020, “USF remains committed to the principle of equity in compensation consistent with assignment and performance.”
In October 2020, then-President Steve Currall announced a task force made up of representatives from all USF campuses to review salary equity.
The task force was based on an effort to continue the “ongoing process of strategic realignment to position the University of South Florida for the future.”
The current status of the task force is unknown.
Interim Regional Vice Chancellor of Academic Affairs and Vice Provost Deni Elliott shared her opinion on pay equity at a Faculty Council meeting on Sept. 23.
“In terms of faculty [salary] equity, my sense is that it is not going to happen this year. I have not seen anything that would lead me to believe anything is going to happen anytime soon,” Elliott said.
