TO: Chief Human Resources Officers, Academic Human Resources Leads
I wanted to provide you an important update regarding the temporary freeze on selected salary increase actions that was originally communicated in my memorandum dated July 3, 2019.
Effective immediately, based on guidance from the Office of State Budget and Management (OSBM), the previously communicated freeze on selected salary actions (reclassification, labor market, equity, additional duties, etc.) is ended. However, there is one important caveat: No salary increase shall be implemented that relies on entirely new funding expected in the FY 2019-2020 budget until such funds are officially appropriated in an enacted State budget or through an enacted mini-bill. Likewise, increases should not rely on funding that is identified as a potential budget cut in any of the pending budget bills for FY 2019-2020. This is to ensure that new permanent salary commitments are not made against funding that is not yet confirmed or may be at risk for any reason. Otherwise, existing eligible funding sources in the FY 2018-2019 budget or from non-State appropriations may be used to address salary actions that were previously delayed by this freeze.
Generally, salary actions are processed on a current basis only. However, in light of the interruption to various salary actions over the past several months, we will grant discretion to institution chief human resources officers to propose retroactive salary actions that were delayed by the freeze where there is appropriate documentation of a prior intended effective date. Examples include salary adjustments for prior reclassifications, the prior assumption of additional duties, or equity actions that were previously documented but delayed by this freeze. This is a one-time opportunity for situations that occurred from July 1, 2019, to present; no retroactive actions related to the freeze may be processed after December 31, 2019. We ask that any salary actions processed for these situations include appropriate documentation as to the basis of the retroactive date. In any case, no retroactive date in these circumstances may fall before July 1, 2019.
I want to emphasize that the existing Board of Governors (BOG) consultation process for salary actions of 5% and $100,000 and new positions budgeted at $70,000 or greater remains fully in effect. Therefore, any actions delayed as a result of the temporary salary freeze must still receive all of the necessary System Office and/or BOG pre-approvals per normal procedures prior to implementation.
At this point, we are still not in the position to release annual raise process (ARP) instructions or authorize the implementation of bonus leave until either an enacted State budget or mini-bill covering salary funding for the University. Likewise, the BOG consultation process will remain in effect until such time as statutory language rescinding it is enacted through either a regular 2019-2020 State budget or a mini-bill that addresses this specific issue. We are closely tracking progress on all of these issues and will continue to keep you updated on further developments.
If you have questions regarding any salary increase actions, please contact a member of the classification and compensation team in System Office Human Resources. If you have budget-related questions, please contact Lindsay McCollum Farling, System Office Vice President for Financial Planning and Analysis, at klmccollum@northcarolina.edu or 919-962-4601.