PERFORMANCE-BASED PAY POLICIES
[The following language is to be placed into the College Faculty Evaluation
Guidelines as required by the Faculty Salary Policy Document for WVU adopted by
the WVU Faculty Senate on May 13, 2002, and approved by the WVU Board of
Governors on June 7, 2002. This statement was written to replace Section B
"Merit Pay Policies" on page 4 of the current Eberly College Faculty Evaluation
Guidelines, as adopted May 15, 1998. This policy was approved by Ad-Hoc Faculty
Committee ECAS, November 22, 2002, Dean Nellis, November 22, 2002, and by C.B.
Wilson and Russell Dean, (based on feedback) December 2002. Presented to Eberly
College Faculty in general at the Fall 2002 Eberly College Faculty meeting on
December 10, 2002. Modified Fall Term 2005 to conform to WVU Faculty Salary Plan
Implementation Strategy.]
Every unit is required to develop a performance-based pay policy that must be
approved by the Dean of the college. Annual evaluations are to be considered
when awarding performance-based pay. The intent of performance-based pay is to
recognize those who are meeting or exceeding the normal expectations associated
with their position and have been rated "satisfactory," "good," or "excellent"
in their areas of assignment. In developing performance-based pay policies and
implementing those policies, units need to exercise care to assure that
performance-based pay is awarded to those whose efforts contribute positively to
the department's and college's mission.
In awarding performance-based pay, the assignment of a faculty member and
his/her performance in that assignment should guide the amount of the award.
Performance-based salary increases will apply proportionally to each assigned
mission area. A faculty member whose annual performance in an assigned mission
area is deemed excellent will received the highest performance-based salary
increase for that portion of his/her assignment. A faculty member whose
performance is deemed good will receive a smaller increase for that portion of
his/her assignment. A faculty member whose performance is deemed satisfactory
will receive a still smaller increase for that portion of his/her assignment. A
faculty member whose performance is assessed as unsatisfactory will receive no
performance-based salary increase for that portion of his/her assignment. Units
in the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences are encouraged to reward performance
in a manner that reflects clear and substantial differences in performance among
the three performance categories ("excellent," "good," and "satisfactory") and
that also provides strong incentives for excellent performance by faculty in
their mission areas. Unless otherwise specified in the department's approved
Performance-Based Pay Policy document, the default performance-based allocation
will be in the ratio of 4.0:2.5:1.0 for "Excellent", "Good", and "Satisfactory"
ratings, respectively. These ratios will apply for performance in all areas of
assignment (Research, Teaching and Service), and will be applied to the real
amount in dollars available to the unit for increases. Salary increases will be
distributed on a fixed percentage basis concomitant with a specific qualitative
assessment. The college salary pool will be allocated on the basis of
department/division salary budgets.
The receipt of performance-based pay in one or several years does not guarantee
that a faculty member will be promoted and/or tenured. For example, if an
exemplary record in teaching is not matched by an appropriate record in research
or service, such a faculty member would not be promoted or tenured although
he/she may have received performance-based pay in each of several years. It is
important that performance-based pay policies developed by the units in the
College make this distinction clear. This distinction also makes it possible to
reward effort that may be important to the unit but that, without other equally
important contributions, may not justify promotion and tenure. The Dean's final
performance-based pay decisions should not be made until faculty members have
been given reasonable opportunity for appeal and rebuttal of annual evaluations.
While the process of annual evaluation and assignment of performance-based pay
are integrated, units may have separate documents defining their promotion and
tenure, and performance-based pay policies.