The back half of a two-part salary increase approved this summer kicked in Oct. 1, so faculty, professional and scientific (P&S) staff, postdocs and contract employees who had satisfactory performance in fiscal year 2019 should see a larger paycheck Oct. 31.
President Wendy Wintersteen and the state Board of Regents approved in June a FY2020 salary increase for faculty and P&S, postdoc and contract staff who had satisfactory performance evaluations. To give unit and department leaders more time to plan for the budget impact, the raise was split in two. The first half was an across-the-board hike of 1% effective July 1, largely paid for by $4.8 million in central funding.
The second half of the pay increase, effective Oct. 1, is at least 1% of an employee's June 30 salary. The Oct. 1 increase can be larger to reward extraordinary performance, though a total FY2020 increase of more than 10% requires division leader approval. Departments and units are self-funding the Oct. 1 increases.
Pay issued to faculty and staff on the last business day of the month covers the work for that month, so the Oct. 31 payroll is the first to include the second half of the raises. Because the June 30 salary was used to calculate the Oct. 1 salary increase, the minimum amount of the second raise is slightly less than 1% based on an employee’s Sept. 30 salary.
Employees should confirm their salary increase is recorded in Workday. View salary changes in Workday by navigating to the employee profile page, which can be accessed from the cloud or photo icon in the upper right of the landing page that appears first when logging on. On the left side of the profile page is a link for compensation, and on the top of the compensation page is a link for pay change history. New compensation rates should be visible to employees in Workday by Oct. 28.
"With the transition into Workday, which has emphasized the move from a budget process to a performance-based process for annual increases, human resources and finance colleagues worked closely together to ensure a smooth transition," said Emma Mallarino Houghton, director of classification and compensation for university human resources. "In the future, we intend to continue building and strengthening these partnerships as we refine Workday and the processes surrounding it."
Nine-month employees
If nine-month annual workers are paid over 12 months -- an option for faculty on academic-year appointment, formerly called B-base faculty -- their paycheck will be slightly more in December than throughout the rest of FY20.
The raise effective on Oct. 1 will increase monthly pay beginning Oct. 31 for nine-month employees whose salaries are spread over 12 months. But since those employees are prepaid for future earnings in July and August, they've already been paid -- at the previous lower rate of pay -- for a portion of their work after Oct 1. That small shortage will be corrected on their Dec. 31 paycheck.
P&S staff at maximum
The maximums for all pay grades in the  P&S salary matrix  went up 1% on July 1. Because of that, eligible P&S staff at the top of their pay grades received the July 1 raise.
For the Oct. 1 raises, P&S staff with a maximum salary will receive a one-time payment in their October paycheck equal to their Oct. 1 raise, which will not increase their base salary. The appropriate combination of salary increase and one-time payment also will be used for employees near the top of their pay grades since base salaries can't exceed the maximum in any pay grade.
Merit increases
Merit staff aren’t eligible for an Oct. 1 pay raise. They received an increase of 2.1% on July 1 as part of a two-year collective bargaining agreement between the state of Iowa and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. The contract also calls for a 2.1% increase on July 1, 2020.
