Lawmakers put professor pay cuts on table

BOISE – Some Idaho lawmakers are asking whether faculty salaries should be cut as Idaho faces cutbacks in funding for higher education.

That’d be a sudden turnaround from years of focus on how to stop other states from raiding Idaho’s best professors because of the state’s relatively low pay, and it shows how far some lawmakers think Idaho’s state budget will slip.

“I think it’s worthy of dialogue at this point,” said state Rep. Cliff Bayer, R-Boise. During a budget hearing Tuesday, Bayer asked Mike Rush, executive director of the state Board of Education, “Do you sense any flexibility or any interest in addressing, if push comes to shove, faculty salaries … to maintain some affordability?”

Rush termed it “an awful question,” but said, “I don’t think we can take anything off the table.” However, he noted, “I don’t think you can argue that Idaho pays their faculty all that well – salaries are low.”

According to the most recent national faculty salary survey by the American Association of University Professors, a full professor at the University of Idaho was paid an average of $86,500 last year, far below the $109,569 national average for comparable public universities. An assistant professor at Lewis-Clark State College made an average of $42,100, compared with the national average of $54,844 at similar state colleges.

State lawmakers and several governors have pushed for higher faculty salaries over the past decade, as prized top research faculty were lured away from Idaho universities to other states for big raises.

“We’ve lost very good people,” said state Rep. Maxine Bell, R-Jerome, co-chairwoman of the Legislature’s joint budget committee. “I think there are many, many ways they’re going to have to look at the budget before they cut faculty salaries. I would think that we would be shooting ourselves in the foot.”

John Martin, vice president of North Idaho College, who was in Boise on Tuesday along with other NIC officials to make a presentation to lawmakers, said, “I think that’s a last resort. Our mission is training and education, and without our faculty, we’re not there.”

However, state Sen. Jim Hammond, R-Post Falls, said he thinks temporary salary cuts could be a way to avoid staff reductions.

“Quite frankly, if you take a 3 or 4 percent salary reduction, it’s going to be very modest in terms of your actual take-home pay, but collectively it’s going to make a difference,” he said.

Sen. Shawn Keough, R-Sandpoint, said, “We really can’t rule anything out at this point. I think our task here in the budget committee is going to do the least amount of harm as possible to our system, but everyone … might have to give a little.”

School board members from across the state were in the Capitol Annex on Tuesday to share with lawmakers their own concerns about public school budget cuts.

Larry Brown, chairman of the Lakeland School District board, said, “We’re wrangling for schools. … We’re just asking the legislators to have the least amount of impact on student class time.” Coeur d’Alene school trustee Vern Newby said his message to lawmakers is, “Give us flexibility. … We need to be able to say, ‘This is important for our district – it may not be important for someone else.’ ”