The University has budgeted for adding seven or eight faculty positions in the coming year and for promoting some faculty members.
Curtis Porter, associate vice president for Budget, Planning & Analysis, said an estimated $800,000 in instructional funds is available to create the positions, and some of the money was also allocated to hiring more advisers, graduate assistants and teaching assistants. There is also $150,000 for promotions.
Provost Suzanne Ortega will decide which departments will be given funds for the positions and whether they will be tenure-track, Porter said.
Instructional funds pay the salaries of faculty members, graduate assistants and teaching assistants, along with operating and departmental expenses.
The Provost's Office receives instructional funds to give to college deans, who divide funds among department heads, Porter said. Department heads then decide how to allocate the money and spend their budget, he said.
Each department is given its base from the previous year plus added funding for new initiatives and programs, Porter said. The upcoming UNM budget includes $5.4 million to fund new initiatives and to continue others, he said.
Get content from The Daily Lobo delivered to your inbox
"Last year there was about $3 million worth of new initiatives, many of which went into the colleges . but they were funded by nonrecurring revenue, so this year they still need to be funded again," he said.
At the beginning of the semester, President David Schmidly promised to hire 10 full-time, tenure-track faculty members over the next three years.
UNM spokeswoman Susan McKinsey said these goals were made before the University knew what its annual budget would be.
"A lot of those intentions were made before we even knew what the budget cuts would be from the Legislature, so I think the intent has always been to fill (the positions) as quickly as possible, given whatever funding is available," she said.
McKinsey said it is up to the deans to figure out what level of faculty they need and will hire.
Where instructional funds come from
The University receives funds from the Legislature that are left over from the tuition credit the state takes from the University. An appropriation of state funds is then distributed to the University for I&G funds, Porter said.
Porter said the University can generate money from the state if enrollment increases.
"When you grow in the formula, you can get new dollars that will help pay for more faculty positions, more GAs and TAs," he said.
Porter said UNM's appropriations for student enrollment have not increased since 2003.
He said the $5.4 million now available comes from several areas within the University, including tuition increases, budget cuts, $2 million worth of fund balances and Schmidly's hiring freeze, which is estimated to generate more than $2 million.
Porter said all academic departments will have their budgets cut by 0.5 percent, and administrative budgets will be cut by 4 percent.
Due to the budget crunch, the Legislature is allowing the University to use building-renewal money for other funds, which would total more than $3 million, he said.
If extra funds were available, they would go toward faculty compensation or faculty raises, Porter said.
Promotions
An estimated $150,000 is available in the budget for faculty promotions, Porter said.
"Something that gets funded every year is money for faculty promotions, because every year we have some number of professors that get promoted from assistant to associate and from associate to full, and we fund that in the budget," Porter said.
Faculty members are given additional funds through salary or faculty compensation increases, when the funds are available, Porter said.
"If a teacher is really teaching a lot and doing a great job and has more people in their classes, their department head can give them a larger raise than other people in their department," he said.
Associate dean Phillip Gonzales said the College of Arts and Sciences' department heads distribute raises by merit, equity or a combination of the two.
In the equity model, the raises would be dispersed evenly among faculty regardless of their annual income. In the merit model, each faculty member would be evaluated by research, teaching and service. The faculty member with the highest scores in these three areas would receive the highest raise, with other faculty members receiving lower raises.
Gonzales said faculty members from within the departments decide which model to follow.
Gonzales said the amount of money for raises that each department receives depends on its number of faculty members.
Howard Snell, Faculty Senate president, said at last week's Board of Regents meeting that all faculty members understand that if enrollment increases, the University will receive more funding for the instruction area.
Marc Saavedra, director of Government & Community Relations, said that if the University grows at a lower rate, the state would not give additional funding, which could be costly.
"Our total population may be increasing, but we aren't going outside of the band, so we are being held flat, and that's where it can be expensive for the institution," he said. "Even though you're growing, you're not growing enough to get the money."
Pay to stay
When other universities try to recruit UNM faculty members, it is up to department heads to figure out if they have enough funding to match the wages, Ortega said.
"Each dean has developed a strategy for managing counter offers in the case of high-performing faculty members, depending on the magnitude of the college and the amount of flexibility and structure they may or may not have," she said.
Ortega said these funds vary from department to department.
"We do have a policy that is designed to award instructional excellence and research excellence, but it's simply too small to get the kind of real leverage that you might expect in the corporate world," she said.
Porter said the Provost's Office has no money set aside for retaining faculty.
