PCC Can't Compete on Pay, Study Finds

WINTER HAVEN | As Polk Community College employees suspected, many of the college's salaries aren't competitive.

PCC would need to spend another $1 million to make salaries competitive across the board, a study done for the college shows.

Not having an extra $1 million in recurring money available, PCC has set aside a little more than one-third of that amount to "address the gross inequities first," PCC President Eileen Holden told the college's board of trustees on Wednesday.

On Monday and Tuesday, she will discuss the findings in more detail with faculty members and other employees. They won't learn until spring whether their individual salaries increase, but they will hear next week how different groups rank competitively and about recommended changes in salary ranges, Vice President Peter Elliott said.

The $351,000 planned for starting on salary corrections is only a first step. PCC must keep working on its salary disparities to meet its goal of being a world-class institution, Holden said.

"We cannot continue to go through searches where people turn down jobs because we're at 87 percent of the market," she said.

When she came to PCC two years ago and met individually with employees, Holden said she heard a "common theme" that salaries were under the market rate.

Board members and an internal budget council approved studying salaries, which was done with Mercer Inc., a benefits and investment consulting company.

Four employee groups - faculty, administrative, career employees and professional-technical - each had a representative on an internal salary study committee that worked with Mercer.

"We stayed true to what I wanted going in," Holden said. "The process was open. It had integrity."

She said PCC is "committed to making improvements" in salaries for its approximately 300 full-time employees.

Career staff members' salaries looked worst in the study, completed last month. Their overall salaries were at84 percent of the market median (midpoint), or16 percentage points below the market. Faculty salaries were at 87 percent, 13 percentage points below market. Professional and technical salaries were at 94 percent, Mercer said.

Administrative staff were the only group whose salaries were competitive, coming in at 101 percent of the midpoint. That doesn't include Holden's salary, $197,500, which the trustees determine separately.

Within the faculty, pay was the least competitive, at74 percent of the midpoint, for five professors with bachelor's degrees. Most faculty members at PCC have master's or doctorate degrees, groups found to be at 88 percent and 86 percent, respectively.

A few with master's degrees and 30 additional credit hours were at 101 percent. Those people could have two master's degrees, a master's and a specialist graduate degree or someone who is part way to a doctorate, Elliott said.

Mercer compared PCC faculty salaries with national figures from the College and University Professional Association, along with a survey of Florida community colleges. Career staff salaries were compared closer to home, because employees in jobs such as administrative assistant move among different types of businesses. The professional-technical comparisons were regionally based.

With the salary schedule changes being proposed, PCC salaries would be at 91.5 percent of the market midpoint, Mercer said.

An implementation plan given the trustees shows PCC would spend $281,000 more on faculty salaries, along with accompanying increases in Social Security and retirement. Another $57,000 would go to career staff, with $13,000 spent for administrative and professional technical staff such as IT specialists.

On a more positive note, the study found PCC's benefits "fairly competitive." PCC was 3 percent under the market for total benefits. The benefits package per employee was $31,025. That includes such things as health insurance coverage for employees and paid holidays.

PCC's benefits were compared to a varied group that included Publix Super Markets, TECO, community colleges in Hillsborough, Manatee, Pasco, Hernando and Orange counties, and the state universities of South Florida, Central Florida and Florida.

Benefits are important to some employees, Holden said, while others focus more on income.

"We lost an employee a few months ago because she could make $3 more an hour," she said. "I absolutely understand why she left."

[ Robin Williams Adams can be reached at robin.adams@theledger.com or 863-802-7558. Read her blog at robinsrx.theledger.com. ]