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Board of Regents urges funding to restore missed pay increases for university staff and faculty; cites recruitment impacts
Summary
Kansas Board of Regents staff told the committee that state university faculty and staff lag market comparators and that fully restoring the 5% raises withheld in recent years would require substantial general‑use funding; Regents presented campus examples of lost faculty and technical staff to illustrate program and research consequences.
Blake Flanders, President and CEO of the Kansas Board of Regents, told the committee the Board’s office and the six state universities asked legislators to consider restoring a 5% pay adjustment that other state employees received in the two most recent pay actions but that Regents system staff and many university employees did not fully receive.
Why it matters: Regents said competition for faculty and technical staff is intensifying and recruiting/retaining faculty has downstream budget and program effects: when a faculty member is recruited away, the university can lose research grants, industry partnerships and student placements.
Data presented: Flanders referred lawmakers to a system table showing the number of general‑use‑funded faculty and staff below market, and the estimated general‑use cost to bring campuses toward market. He said systemwide adjustments would be handled through a merit and general‑use allocation process on each campus, noting state general fund increases do not translate into identical across‑the‑board raises because campuses distribute merit pools differently.
Examples: Flanders cited campus examples provided in the testimony: Wichita State lost an assistant computer science professor to University of Texas, Arlington after a recruitment offer of roughly $130,000; a WSU engineering hire started at $82,000 and Michigan Tech recruited to roughly $120,000; Fort Hays and other regionals reported difficulty hiring HVAC technicians, plumbers and university police. The Regents packet estimated a system general‑use shortfall on the order of tens of millions of dollars (dollar figures were included in committee materials).
What’s next: Regents said the figures should guide legislative decisions and offered to provide campus‑level distributions and methodology details showing how many positions sit within various market gap bands (for instance, how many are 1–5% below market vs. more significant shortfalls).
Ending: the committee asked for campus breakdowns and encouraged Regents to supply distributional detail so lawmakers can consider phased or targeted approaches during budget negotiations.
