The trustees are presented with the salaries and benefits recommendations for the upcoming fiscal year each spring.

The board was presented with two options: option three and option four; they approved option three.

Option four pertained to the recalculation of all of the faculty and staff salaries by applying the longevity model to the revised salary schedules.

Option four, including salaries and benefits, would have been approximately $1,250,000.

Western’s president Dr. Kim Dale said, “Over the last five years, these are some of the most engaged conversations we’ve had about this topic. It’s encouraging to see that more folks are coming out and sharing because it does make for better decisions.”

Before the vote, Dale was asked by board president James Jesson to give them her recommendation.

“The other piece that makes this ‘easier’ is that we are in a situation where we have some funding to make these choices,” she explained. “We’ve had other years where we haven’t had that.”

Dale pointed out that option four included the “longevity approach.”

“Several years ago, it was 2021, the board approved the longevity approach,” she said. “In thinking about that from a pure perspective, one might think, ‘Well, the board already approved the longevity approach. So, we should probably continue with the longevity approach because the action that was taken.’”

She added, “One of the things that seemed to be a problem solver with option four is that it really did help address compression; it doesn’t solve all of the compression issues, but it does help.”

Dale went on to say that when looking back over the past two years, they did not utilize the longevity approach. Instead, they implemented “across the board raises.”

“Those are good decisions because it’s helped with inflation that is really crushing a lot of our families and community members,” Dale said.

Two years ago, the board approved a 3.5% raise.

“We had a 4% raise, across the board, for everyone,” she said. “If we look at this 6%, that’s going to be 13.5% for our employees over three years.”

Dale said that they recommended option three.

“Very simply, the 6% across the board does the most good for our people. What I particularly like about it is that some of our lowest paid employees will see a nicer increase.”

Trustee Neil Kourbelas said that he agreed with their recommendation.

“It seems that there’s no right answer here. Both options are good,” he said. “Option three gives us $30,000 more into the salary structure, which I think is a plus right there.”