NOTES ON DEVELOPMENT OF EXEMPT PAY PROGRAM

TASK FORCE MEETING

 

The Exempt Pay Program Task Force met on September 15, 1997, at the USM Office to examine and discuss the Technical Work Group's ("TWG") efforts at moving the project forward. In that regard, a memorandum from Chancellor Langenberg will be coming out within the next two weeks, to request that exempt employees in the System provide information on their jobs. Exempt employees includes classified exempt, associate staff, academic administrators and unclassified employees, but does not include faculty. The institutions' Human Resources Offices will provide the information forms to collect the data needed. It is hoped that all exempt employees will participate, as the information on their individual jobs will be very important.

In other areas, it was agreed that the managerial and institution-specific jobs will be left to the institution to determine where they should be ranked; however there must be a rational process to set these job ranks, even though each institution may be different. Very few, if any, managerial jobs are systemwide, and therefore, could not be used as benchmark positions. It will be up to the TWG to identify the jobs that are standard throughout the System, such as accountants, and to create job specifications for them. It was also agreed that many jobs across the System cannot be compared to each other. Instead the Task Force will look to where the jobs fall in the market by institution. Different data may be looked at, but the process must be the same at each institution. It was agreed that there must be a consistent application of all factors at each institution.

It was also agreed that communication among the various groups, including the Task Force, CUSS, the Administrative Vice-Presidents, and the System HR Directors and Offices, who will have input and decision-making authority over the Exempt Pay Program be maintained. This communication and feed-back from the various groups may lead to an extended time-line in the decision-making process; however, it is essential in order to have the Pay Program accepted and then implemented as planned.

The target date for implementation is now the Fall of 1999. Once this time-line has been fully developed, it will be submitted to the various groups for comment and approval.

The next meeting of the Task Force is set for October 17, at which the job level philosophy and policy statements will be discussed.