A letter from Georgia Southern University’s President Kyle Marrero explains the outcome of the university’s budget redirection plan, which includes funds toward fixing pay disparities among faculty and staff and details on eliminating vacant faculty positions.

The original estimated redirection /reductions for FY20 was $15,025,564. According to the letter that amount decreased to $13,102,257.

“We began with a budget redirection target of 10% for each unit — the total redirection ended up ranging from 5.5% [for Academic Affairs] to 10.07% [for] Business & Finance for an average university-wide reduction of 6.79%,” Marrero said in the letter. “The total amount identified was approximately $20.3 million.”

From the redirection, the university identified savings and new funding equal to $26.4 million.

GS has allocated $13.3 million for FY20 strategic priorities. These priorities include:

• Addressing faculty & staff salary equity studies: $6.5 million

• GS share of 2% merit increase + faculty promotion & tenure: $1.5 million

• Student success/enrollment growth/retention: $2.67 million

• Restoring university reserves: $2.6 million

Fixing pay disparity

Part of the funds from the redirection will go towards fixing disparity in pay for faculty and staff, Marrero said in the letter.

According to the letter, approximately $6.5 million will be spent on salary equity for faculty and staff, $500,000 will be spent for faculty promotion and tenure salary increases and another $4 million, which includes $3 million from state funding, will go towards salary merit increases to faculty and staff.

The university is investing approximately $2.7 million in salary equity to ensure compensation for the faculty, as a whole, will be at approximately 90% of peer median. This investment will impact 327 faculty members.

The university also plans to invest $3.8 million to ensure all staff salaries are at least at the entry point minimum of their pay band. There are additional targeted market adjustments planned.

The first round of salary adjustments will impact 816 staff members with no one’s salary will be decreased, Marrero said in the letter.

Faculty and staff will be informed of their new salaries pending approval from the University System of Georgia in May, according to the letter.

“We are all in this together and will continue to invest in our students’ success, our dedicated faculty and staff and the communities we serve,” Marrero said in the letter.

Vacant positions cut

According to the letter, the university identified 196 vacant positions for elimination, which comprised 43 faculty and 90 staff from budget redirection, plus an additional 63 staff positions identified during the Comprehensive Administrative Review process.

Out of the 196 identified vacant positions, 103 vacant positions were eliminated as a direct result of the redirection according to the university document below.

The vacant faculty eliminations include:

• College of Arts and Humanities- 24 vacant positions

• College of Education- nine vacant positions

• College of Science and Mathematics- 12 vacant positions

• College of Behavioral and Social Science- three vacant positions

• College of Public Health- one vacant position

• College of Health Professionals- one vacant position

• Administrative assistants of unspecified departments- 10 vacant positions

According the letter, all the positions that were eliminated were vacant as of March 15, with some vacant for six to 12 months or longer

For more information, visit the office of the president.

Matthew Enfinger and Brendan Ward, The George-Anne editor-in-Chief and Coverage Managing Editor, gaeditor@georgiasouthern.edu