UNLV executives big merit winners

      Top brass at UNLV are the big winners in a merit pay system designed to reward the university's best teachers and brightest researchers.
      Vice presidents and deans are nearly twice as likely to garner merit pay increases than professors, and top administrators last year received $320 more on average than did faculty members, university records show.
      In July 1996, merit pay increases showed up in the paychecks of 48 percent of the university's 658 faculty members, compared with 90 percent of the school's 20 top executives. Merit pay increases averaged $2,089 for professors and $2,409 for administrators.
      Merit pay i ncreases supplemented 3 percent cost-of-living increases that last summer automatically went to everyone on the university's staff of more than 1,400.
      UNLV President Carol Harter, who has final approval over merit award s, defended the widespread distribution of administrative merit pay as a necessity for keeping the best leaders in challenging positions at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
      "Most are going to receive merit, or they are not going to have a job," Harter said last week. "They, by definition, had better be deserving of merit. They are hired because of their leadership abilities, and they are expected to solve the most complex problems facing the university."
 & #160;    Nevada lawmakers budget merit pay increases only for professors and professional staff members who have not entered the top layers of administration, so Harter had to find money for executive merit pay increases from elsewhere in the university's state-supported budget.
      The Legislature deliberately left 20 highly paid UNLV executives off its list of possible merit recipients. Recently created top-level positions could be added to that exemption category when lawmakers finish their biennial session later this year in Carson City.
      For the 1996-97 academic year, the state-funded merit pool was tapped at UNLV for pay increases to top-level administrators not alrea dy exempted. Exempted administrators include vice presidents, deans, associate deans and the athletic director.
      While Harter found $45,778 in merit pay increases to distribute to 90 percent of the exempted executives, $ 20,702 in state merit appropriations went to 50 percent of faculty members in the Greenspun School of Communication.
      That executives are "getting a bigger chunk of the bucks" befuddles Evan Blythin, an associate profess or of communications.
      "Our students are every bit as important as the tasks administrators tend to every day," said Blythin, who was among 10 communications faculty members passed over for merit. "Why not give merit to 90 percent of the faculty? I don't think there's anything more critical than preparing a group of students" for life beyond the university's walls.
      Merit pay went to 318 faculty members and 103 professional staff member s, as well as to dozens of administrators who were not exempted by lawmakers and employees working in support offices across campus. Self-supporting operations such as the Thomas & Mack Center carve merit pay increases from their non-state budgets.
&# 160;     The merit pay system is a competitive process that focuses on the evaluations of an individual's work in the areas of teaching, research and service. Nearly $1 million in merit pay was awarded at UNLV for the 1996-97 academic year based on accomplishments in the 1995 calendar year.
      To the surprise of several faculty members, names of employees who had not spent 12 months at UNLV in 1995 showed up on the July 1996 merit list.
   ;    One of the highest individual awards on campus went to basketball coach Bill Bayno, who was hired March 30,1995, at an annual base salary of $100,000.
      After his first eight months at UNLV, Bayno was awarded a $7,000 merit pay increase. Add to that his cost-of-living pay increase, and his state salary reached $110,000 for the fiscal year.
      His hefty merit increase came at a time in which the university continues pay ing off the $1.88 million buyout of a broken contract with former basketball coach Rollie Massimino.
      By the end of 1995, Bayno had coached eight of the season's 26 games. He lost five of those eight games, but received praise for his recruiting efforts.
      Harter said she approved Bayno's $7,000 merit pay increase on the advice of Athletic Director Charles Cavagnaro, who received a $3,400 merit increase for the five months he spent at UN LV in 1995. His annual salary, including a cost-of-living increase, jumped to $124,000 from $117,000.
      Another UNLV administrator, Fred Albrecht, executive director of community and alumni relations, received a merit pay increase of $2,700 for his work in 1995, a year in which his responsibilities increased and his income rose to $90,500 from $73,900.
      Douglas Ferraro, the university's chief academic officer, received a merit pay increase despite not spending a day of 1995 at UNLV. He didn't start working at the school until early 1996.
    &# 160; Harter called Ferraro's $3,750 merit pay increase an "equity adjustment." She said Ferraro's initial $125,000 salary was too low, so his annual pay was increased to $132,612 after merit and cost-of-living increases.
      ; "I think they ought to hold administrators to the same standards faculty are held to," said economics Professor Bill Robinson, who did not receive a merit increase for 1995. "If faculty members have to play by the rules, so should administrators. If it 's impossible for all faculty members to receive merit, it should be impossible for all administrators to receive merit."
      After concluding the university's merit system for faculty members was "not ideal and lends itsel f to possible inquiries," Ferraro announced plans for change in January. A letter from Ferraro arrived in the mail slots of professors at the same time they were crowding copy machines to prepare cases for merit based on their 1996 accomplishments.
&# 160;     Ferraro said his goal was to raise expectations and standards. Under the new plan, there will be six merit steps rather than the current four.
      For several years, faculty members have been e ligible for merit awards of $800, $1,400, $2,200 and $3,600. Those steps will change to $1,000, $1,500, $2,000, $2,500, $3,000 and $4,500, and Ferraro plans to limit the number of recipients to no more than 20 percent per merit category.
  & #160;   "My thinking here is that in order to meet legislative intent, there needs to be more differentiation among the awards than has sometimes been true in the past," Ferraro said in the January letter. "In other words, I do not believe coll eges should grant large numbers of small awards as a means of spreading out the merit among the greatest number of faculty. The merit system we devise should ensure that the most meritorious faculty are rewarded adequately for their efforts."
 &# 160;    If fewer faculty members receive merit pay increases, Robinson said, the same rules should apply to top-level administrators. And savings could be spent to hire more instructors or advisers for students, he said.
  &# 160;   Robinson said the merit system for administrators should become as formal a process as it is for faculty members, with room for evaluations from professors and others on campus.
      Professor Craig Walton, who directs the university's ethics and policy studies program and serves as the state president of Nevada Faculty Alliance, sidestepped talk about administrative merit pay but praised the competitive system that exists for faculty members.
 
60;    "By and large, it's a good system that, I think, raises the standards, the morale and the level of motivation," said Walton, who was awarded $950 in merit for his exceptional teaching record in 1995. "If you have a system that gives the same recognition to the people that are barely running as it does to the people who are meritorious, I don't think that's healthy. When you have a fine crop of people, they should be recognized."
      Professors at UNLV apply for merit in January, creating a paper trail of their accomplishments in the areas of teaching, research and service.
      Forwarded to peer-evaluation committees are examples of work such as published articles, prese ntations at conferences, teaching evaluations, university-governing assignments and community service projects.
      Department committees review merit applications and forward their recommendations to college committees. Th ose recommendations are then passed to college deans and, if approved, they are forwarded to Ferraro and Harter for final approvals in late spring.
      Merit pay applications from 1996 are still being processed.
 & #160;    Last year, the College of Liberal Arts had the highest percentage of merit pay recipients. Fifty-two percent of faculty members in the university's largest college received an average of $1,943.
      The highest merit pay amount went to faculty members in the College of Fine and Performing Arts, where 48 percent received average increases of $2,777.
      Lawmakers are reviewing a $1.3 million request from UNLV for merit pay increases for the 1997-98 academic year. Overall, the Legislature is being asked to budget $4 million to cover merit at Nevada's two public universities, four community colleges, state research center and system support offices.
    ;   The $4 million request represents 2.5 percent of the university system's faculty and professional staff salaries.
      University Regent Mark Alden is a backer of merit pay, calling it a "great incentive" for professors, whose average salary at UNLV is $52,813.
      "Merit pay is a very useful tool to award those faculty who have gone above and beyond the call of duty," Alden said. "As long as it's not used to award political tha nk-yous, it's a very good tool."