An Introduction by Dany Nebel, Editor-in-Chief
On Nov. 9th, 2023, all staff and faculty received an email from the SMU Presidents with the subject line, “Faculty and Staff Budget Update.” The email details several budget cuts and adjustments that the University will be enacting to recover from a budget shortfall of over $6 Million. The email states that the university is not close to bankruptcy or closing, but that after identifying “nearly $5 Million of non-compensation related cuts and additional revenue” to help offset the budget shortfall, “we now have no alternative but to consider compensation-related cuts to help sustain and balance the budget.” The email states that there will be an elimination of retirement contributions for faculty and staff, a rollback of salary increases for faculty, and an unspecified salary cut for the President’s Cabinet (administration). According to the email, “Beginning with the December payroll cycle, faculty salaries will be rolled back to approximately 2022-2023 levels with a 1% increase”. The email notes, “the University does reserve the right to implement further compensation adjustments or reductions if our financial situation demands it.” The Belltower has included the email to all staff and faculty for our readers. We will also be including the Faculty Senate’s response.
The President’s Email:
Dear faculty and staff,
Roy F. Heynderickx, PhD
Let us start with thanking everyone that participated this weekend at our annual Gala event. We raised over $2 million to support our students and the University. While this amount is lower than last year due to considerable For Every Saint comprehensive campaign pledge payments made last year, the amount this year raised for student scholarships exceeded our expectations. These gifts do help our budget this year, though most of it was already planned for in our forecasts. I am always amazed at the generosity of our greater community and their faith in the mission of Saint Martin’s University.
Where we are currently:
It is important to begin our budget update with some clarifications: We are not insolvent, we are not close to bankruptcy or closing; and, our enrollment trend, except this year, is positive. We have strong net assets and investments to help carry the University forward and our enrollment is mostly stable.
We have looked closely at alternatives to help balance this year’s budget and we explored long-shot ideas that unfortunately will not work. In all of these deliberations around potential budget cuts, our focus was, and remains to be, to protect the student experience. We have identified nearly $5 million of non-compensation related cuts and additional revenue to help offset a budget shortfall of over $6 million projected for this year. We now have no alternative but to consider compensation-related cuts to help sustain and balance the budget.
Budget cuts for the remainder of this fiscal year:
First, we will need to eliminate the remainder of this year’s University 403(b) retirement contributions for faculty and staff beginning with the pay cycle starting November 16. As one of your employee benefits, the University contributes 8% of your salary (for qualified full-time employees) into your retirement plan. This is 8% above and beyond the full salary you are paid. Your accumulated balance in your retirement account is yours and will not be impacted, and you may make additional contributions yourself to grow your retirement account. This cut will provide the largest share of the remaining actions needed to balance this year’s budget.
Second, we will need to rollback previous faculty salary increases provided for the 2023-24 academic year. We will honor a 1% salary increase from last year’s salary for all faculty, and honor new faculty salaries for those that began working here during the Fall 2023 semester. The Strategic Plan Annual Improvement Project (AIP) on faculty compensation that is currently underway will still move forward. We are evaluating how to implement the new salary scale, as well as salary increases, in the coming years.
Third, the President’s Cabinet (administration) will also take a salary cut to help offset the budget shortfall. Staff salaries will remain unchanged.
All of this is important to help offset the current, significant, budget shortfall. These necessary budget decisions were not made lightly. For faculty, we will hold salaries at their current level through November 15. The paycheck you will receive at the end of November will be based on the same monthly salary amount you received at the end of October. Beginning with the December payroll cycle, however, faculty salaries will be rolled back to approximately 2022-2023 levels with a 1% increase. You will receive an amended appointment letter with the revised salary amount as soon as possible, no later than the end of November.
With these reductions, additional revenue generation, and other substantial cost-savings measures being implemented, we hope to hold faculty and staff wages and benefits stable for the rest of the fiscal year. However, the University does reserve the right to implement further compensation adjustments or reductions if our financial situation demands it. Any such reductions would be made on a prospective basis with as much advance notice as possible.
Moving forward:
Previously, we shared with you other non-compensated related cuts and revenue enhancements that
require us working together to achieve. We will also immediately begin program assessments/reviews and exploring new initiatives to set the University up for a more sustainable future. A newly combined kitchen cabinet and budget committee will be formed to monitor progress toward the goals identified to balance this year’s budget, keep members of the community informed, and to help create that sustainable future.
The incredible work of the faculty last year to create the new faculty salary scale is not all lost; we will continue to focus on realistic, sustainable revenue streams to support it.
We will host a Faculty and Staff Townhall on Tuesday, November 14, at 3:30 p.m. in Cebula Hall 3rd Floor Event Space to address questions you may have; there will not be a Zoom option to attend. A calendar invitation will be shared shortly. We will provide opportunities for university leadership to meet with you in your departments (both academic and staff) to answer questions as well. For our students, university leadership is working with ASSMU to schedule fireside chats to connect with our students on all topics related to their experience here.
Finally, we thank each and every one of you for what you do here at Saint Martin’s. Our community is richer for our mission and our students and graduates thanks to you and your dedication.
Finally, we thank each and every one of you for what you do here at Saint Martin’s. Our community is richer for our mission and our students and graduates thanks to you and your dedication.
Interim Co-President
Fr. Kilian Malvey, O.S.B.
On Nov. 12, 2023, the Faculty Senate responded to the President’s email. Similar to the original email from the Presidents, the Faculty Senate’s response was sent to all faculty and staff. The faculty’s statement came together over a three-day period and was unanimously approved by all fourteen members of the Senate, including representatives from all 4 colleges at Saint Martin’s University. Professor Ian Werrett, the 2023-24 Faculty President, introduces the Senate’s response email, writing,
“On Wednesday, November 8, the interim co-Presidents of Saint Martin’s University announced the implementation of additional austerity measures, which will go into effect in the coming weeks. These measures, which include the rolling back of faculty salaries to last year’s rates and the freezing of retirement contributions, are unjust and contradictory to the values of our identity as a Catholic, Benedictine community. In response to these actions the Faculty Senate has unanimously approved a formal position statement (attached) denouncing the aforementioned austerity measures and calling for a reassessment of the philosophy behind our approach to the budgetary shortfall affecting our community.”
Here is the Faculty Senate’s letter:
Dear Stakeholders,
Unanimously approved by the fourteen members of the Faculty Senate on 11/12/23 and respectfully submitted by Ian Werrett, Ph.D. – Faculty President, Chair of the Faculty Senate, and Professor of Religious Studies – 11/13/2023
For much of Saint Martin’s University’s history, faculty have been underpaid relative to their peer institutions. Early in President Heynderickx’s tenure at Saint Martin’s, he increased the salaries of faculty within two schools, thereby affecting a minority of all faculty, and promised to provide market adjustments to the remaining faculty in due course. Over his 14-year tenure at Saint Martin’s, however, President Heynderickx never made good on his offer to increase the salaries of the remaining faculty, who were prevented from realizing over a decade’s worth of earning potential as a result.
When President JBR took office, faculty (and staff) pay was at a crisis point. Dedicated faculty who had served at Saint Martin’s for decades were effectively making less than when they began working here thanks to inflation and the lack of appropriate COLA’s for residents of the Pacific Northwest. President JBR repeatedly expressed a commitment to “investing in our people” and, after a year’s worth of research, planning, and faculty involvement, she and her cabinet approved a faculty-led proposal to raise faculty salaries to a level that was on a par with similarly sized, faith-based universities with comparable operating budgets – a decision that was ultimately ratified by the Board of Trustees when they approved the 23/24 budget in May of this year.
Fast forward to today. JBR has left the university, Dr. Heynderickx and Fr. Kilian Malvey are our interim co-presidents, and Saint Martin’s is reeling from a significant budgetary shortfall – a financial crisis that has driven the interim co-presidents to cut faculty salaries and freeze retirement contributions. This damaging decision can be seen as a rejection of the year-long process that faculty engaged in good faith as they worked towards improving quality of life through long-needed pay increases.
Let us be clear, with this action by interim co-presidents Heynderickx and Fr. Kilian, our community is effectively turning its back on the idea of “doing no harm,” which was the central pillar of last year’s work on salary improvement. Not only does the act of targeting faculty salaries and retirement benefits affect faculty more than any other stakeholder on campus, but it does so in a way that hurts most those faculty who earn the least. In short, rolling salaries back to last year’s rates is not only the antithesis of “doing no harm” it is a moral and ethical hammer-blow to those within our community who can least afford it. Reverting to the 2022-23 contracts harms all faculty and given that last year’s salary improvement plan addressed historical inequities in CAS & CEC, it harms most CAS & CEC faculty at disproportionate rates than other faculty with salary cuts between 10%-20%. These cuts, arriving in Faculty’s paychecks starting just days after Christmas, are the height of injustice and fly in the face of Saint Martin’s University’s identity as a Catholic, Benedictine institution.
As a Catholic university founded by monks from the Order of Saint Benedict, Saint Martin’s University is called to a higher standard when it comes to the education of its students, the care of its employees, and the stewardship of its community. Our Benedictine values emphasize justice, community, and dignity of work. Living these values demands that our community tackles problems as a community that is engaged in shared sacrifice, with everyone doing their part to survive this budgetary shortfall. And living these values demands that we seek to protect the most vulnerable, rather than having the lowest paid faculty carry the heaviest burden of these budget cuts.
The faculty of Saint Martin’s University have children, mortgages, and other financial responsibilities and the recently implemented salary improvement plan finally provided a measure of breathing room and relief after decades of financial hardship and stagnation. It is not an understatement to say that the prospect of balancing our budget on the backs of the lowest paid faculty, once again, will result in longstanding and potentially irreversible harm. In the immediate, it is harmful to faculty whose salaries have been out of step with the cost of living in the Pacific Northwest for decades. Paying bills, fixing broken cars, affording childcare, and all of life’s basic expenses will become a struggle once again. More broadly, this approach will cause untold damage to faculty morale as well as the relationship between administration and faculty. And most fundamentally, this approach will damage Saint Martin’s expressed commitment to our Benedictine values. How can we identify with these values, call on students to join us at Saint Martin’s because of our unique identity, when we are not living out these values ourselves?
The act of rolling salaries back to last year’s rates and freezing retirement contributions for the fifth time in 14 years is damaging for our community in ways far more costly than dollars and cents. These actions will have a ripple effect that extends far beyond the tenure of our interim co-presidents. The divisive atmosphere and damaged morale precipitated by this decision will make it all the more difficult for us to find a quality presidential candidate in the coming year. Furthermore, it will make it exponentially harder for a new president to have a successful start to their tenure. As such, we, the Faculty Senate of Saint Martin’s University, strongly condemn the actions taken to reduce faculty salaries and formally request that the indicated cuts be rescinded with immediate effect. Using the Benedictine values of justice, dignity of work, listening, stewardship, community, and stability as our foundation, we offer to work together to successfully heal this budget shortfall with positive, community focused solutions.
After the Presidents’ email to all faculty and staff, signs around campus began to appear, urging administration to #HonortheContract. The Belltower will continue to report on the situation as it develops.
The Belltower 