Nine of NIU’s highest-paid academic staff members pocketed raises at least twice the average salary increase of all NIU employees.

Topping the list was Peter Mulhern, an assistant professor in the College of Law, with a 25 percent increase from $53,580 to $66,876 per year and Barbara Henley, vice president for student affairs, with a 24 percent increase from $54,036 to $67,200.

The Northern Star reviewed the 359 academic staffers whose salaries reached $5,000 per month or more after their 1989-90 raises and whose raises were not because of promotion.

About 57 percent, or 203 from this group, got more than the average 9 percent increase.

The higher-than-average raises were given to academic staffers as merit increases and catch-up pay to equal ranking faculty at comparable institutons.

Academic staff includes professors and most non-teaching faculty, including some administrators.

Following Henley was Psychology Professor Joel Milner, whose 23 percent raise put him at $77,340. Finance Associate Professor Richard Dowen and Electrical Engineering Professor Sing Bow got 19 percent boosts that put them at $84,132 and $75,300 per year respectively.

NIU Assistant Personnel Provost Frank Nowik said, overall, NIU salary raises are decided annually by the state. NIU got nearly $92 million, including an 8 percent increase allowance to pay salaries for Fiscal Year 1990.

NIU’s cut for academic staff was $45 million. NIU divided the money between the academic colleges according to their salary needs, Nowik said.

Staff salaries can be raised in the following ways:

A typically small, across-the-board raise, using part of the state increase allowance.

Merit increases based on the different employee evaluations made by each department.

Catch-up, or equity raises, not paid for with state money.

Rarely, NIU will match or beat salary offers from other universities. Department money, not state increases, pay for this.

Promotion-based increases.

Nowik said NIU decided to use 15 percent of its increase allowance for an across-the-board pay-hike, giving each of NIU’s 1,714 academic staff a 1.35 percent raise.

The rest of the allowance was divided by the individual departments according to employee evaluations, resulting in the 9 percent average raise.

Teaching faculty are evaluated by their performances in teaching, research and service—such as work on professional committees, Nowik said.

Non-teaching faculty, such as administrators, are evaluated under different criteria, he said.

Although equity raises accounted only for .9 percent of raises, they are one way to keep NIU salaries in line with the marketplace, Nowik said.

“We don’t have enough money to do this for the whole university, but we did have some money to address the problem,” he said.

Although none of those reviewed were promoted, the highest academic staff increase came in at 41 percent to Mathematical Science Professor Moshen Pourahmadi—from $37,788 to $63,504.

Pourahmadi got a combination of an across-the-board, merit, promotion and possibly a catch-up increase.

Nowik cautioned that looking at the numbers alone can be misleading. While Henley got her large increase before being promoted to Vice President of Student Affairs, she filled the position of acting vice president after former VP Jon Dalton left for Florida.

Likewise, those listed in the graph as administrators with faculty standing acted as chair of their department or some other position outside of the normal teaching/research track.

“Although it’s not listed as a promotion, there is some change in status,” Nowik said.

In addition, relatively few raises fell into either extreme, he said.

“For all those getting the higher raises, someone had to get a very small one,” Nowik said. Some people got raises as small as 2 percent, which includes a merit increase.

Eddie Williams, vice president of Finance and Planning, said the state’s overall pay increases are rising, but Illinois salaries still are well below average.

The state gaurantees the base amount of salary money from the previous year, but no more. FY88 saw no state salary increase.

FY90’s 8 percent state salary increase “was an appropriate allocation given that we were coming off of several years which were very low,” Wiliams said.

State salary increases rise and fall like rollercoasters, and so far, the ride in FY91 seems ready to plunge again. Although the legislature will not decide the increase until the end of June, Gov. James Thompson recommended only 3 percent.

“I’m not saying this will be the final figure, but you can see what the pattern is: zero, six, eight, three,” Williams said.

He said Illinois salaries skipped from about 49th to 47th nationwide this year, but could fall again if the increases shrink.

“We want to be competitive, we want to keep our good people… to do that, we have to be competitive in the marketplace,” Williams said.

Nowik agreed the situation so far is discouraging.

“It’s extremely demoralizing for our faculty to have such wide fluctuations in their salary increases,” he said.

Mark Gates, Michelle Isaacson and Karrie Reis contributed to this report.