UW-Green Bay will start fall semester of 2009 on September 3, about a week from now. As usual, all faculty will receive a formal appointment e-mail from the school authority.
My appointment letter arrived on July 30, 2009. The letter first thanks my contributions to the university and the state, and will appoint me as an associate professor for one full year assignment. The letter then goes directly to the following statement:
On June 23, 2009, the Governor issued Executive Order 285 which requires all nine (9)-month state employees to take six (6) days or 48 hours (prorated for part-time and part-year employees) of unpaid leave (furlough time off) in each of the next two fiscal years. Under the UW System plan for implementing the furloughs, which has been approved by the Office of State Employment Relations, your salary will be reduced by 3.065% for the period July 1, 2009 through June 30, 2011.
Three percents pay reduction sounds like a lot; but it is much better than the other states such as California. My brother-in-law teaches at Southern California State University. He told us all professors in the California received a 15% pay reduction. Even worse, the pay they get now is not really a paycheck, but a paynote. On the paper notes those professor received have the following statement: " The government owes you, ...$50,000..." In other words, those notes cannot be cashed right away. Only when the government says it is the right time to cash, then those teachers can get the real money.
Someone obviously turns this into opportunity. Those people will buy up those government notes with 80% of the note-value. Those people will hope that government will not bankrupt. In that situation, they will have 20% of net profit.
But, do we have faith in California that California will not go bankrupt some day?
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oh no, I can't believe that the professor's salary can be reduced! And 15%, that's really unbelievable
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