NIU’s clerical staff will receive a 3 percent raise in addition to the 3 percent raise that all NIU employees received this fiscal year. The pay increase was made effective Jan. 1.

The raise will affect about 530 NIU employees, said Steve Cunningham, associate vice president for Enterprise Planning and Human Resources.

The largest number of people the pay increase will affect is secretaries, but it also will affect a wide cross-section of employees, he said.

There are about 30 classifications of employees the raise will affect, including employees involved in customer service and student support services, Cunningham said.

NIU President John Peters made a recommendation for the pay increase, and the Board of Trustees approved the increment guidelines in June 2003, he said.

The increase is part of a long-term plan to work on the competitiveness of the employees’ salaries, Cunningham said. It has been a priority since fiscal year 1999, when clerical employees received their first supplemental salary increase.

“Operating Staff Council has been instrumental in making it a priority,” Cunningham said.

Cunningham said he did not have the numbers on how the raise directly would affect NIU’s budget money-wise, but he said that 3 percent of base salaries for the positions does not represent a large component of overall salary base.

The pay increase for clerical employees was hard to do, but the university was willing to set aside the money for it based upon market competitiveness and the roles they fulfill for the university, he said.

“It does a lot of good for a lot of people,” Cunningham said.