Tag: Salary

  • Harvard Faculty Pledge 10% of Salary to Defend Against Trump

    Harvard Faculty Pledge 10% of Salary to Defend Against Trump

    Nearly 100 senior faculty members at Harvard have committed to taking a pay cut to support the institution’s legal defense against the federal government.

    The Trump administration has frozen more than $2 billion in federal funding, threatened to revoke Harvard’s tax-exempt status and said it would end the institution’s ability to enroll international students.

    Last month, Harvard filed a lawsuit to halt the federal freeze on $2.2 billion in grants after university officials refused to comply with a sweeping list of demands from the government.

    On Friday, President Trump repeated his calls to revoke Harvard’s tax exempt status. “We are going to be taking away Harvard’s Tax Exempt Status. It’s what they deserve!” he said in a post on his social media platform, TruthSocial.

    Harvard president Alan Garber said taking away the institution’s nonprofit tax exemption would be “highly illegal” and that its mission to educate and research would be “severely impaired” if the status were revoked.

    In their pledge, 89 senior faculty signatories said they would take a 10 percent pay cut for up to a year to protect the institution, as well as faculty and students who are more exposed to efforts to shore up costs, including by limiting graduate student enrollment and implementing hiring and salary freezes.

    “The financial costs will not be shared equally among our community. Staff and students in many programs, in particular, are under greater threat than those of us with tenured positions,” the pledge says.

    Ryan Enos, a signatory and professor of government at Harvard, estimated that the donations could amount to more than $2 million.

    The group said it intends to move quickly but has not decided how the salary cuts will be implemented.

    “We envision that faculty who have made the pledge will hold a vote and if the majority agrees that the university is making a good faith effort to use its own resources in support of staff, student, and academic programs, faculty will proceed with their donation.”

    Last week the institution announced changes to its admissions, curriculum and disciplinary procedures after two internal task forces launched last year investigating anti-Muslim bias and antisemitism on campus found the university’s response lacking.

    In response to the efforts, a White House official told CNN, “Harvard’s steps so far to curb antisemitism are ‘positive,’” but “what we’re seeing is not enough, and there’s actually probably going to be additional funding being cut.”

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  • Harvard faculty group pledges 10% of salary to help university fight Trump

    Harvard faculty group pledges 10% of salary to help university fight Trump

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     Dive Brief:

    • Dozens of faculty members at Harvard University have signed on to contribute 10% of their salaries, for up to a year, to the institution’s legal fight against the Trump administration. 
    • As of Friday afternoon, 88 senior faculty had signed the agreement, according to organizers. Of those, 43 have done so publicly.
    • The faculty pledge came just before President Donald Trump said his administration will pull Harvard’s tax-exempt status, adding “It’s what they deserve!” in a Friday social media post.

    Dive Insight:

    This week’s developments are only the latest in the ongoing battle between Harvard and Trump.

    In the president’s numerous attacks on higher education, Harvard in particular has borne intense scrutiny from the Trump administration. That aggression escalated significantly in mid-April when the Ivy League institution rebuked demands from federal agencies to interfere in academic matters, becoming the first well-known college to respond so forcefully.

    Since then, the administration has slashed Harvard’s federal funding by almost $2.3 billion, threatened billions of dollars more, opened Title VI investigations into it and its law review, and threatened its ability to enroll international students.

    Harvard is now suing the Trump administration over what it calls the government’s efforts to withhold federal funding “as leverage to gain control of academic decisionmaking.”

    Though Harvard is one of the best-resourced institutions in the country, the legal battle is likely to be arduous and expensive. This week’s faculty salary pledge described the university as facing “severe financial damage for its defense of academic freedom.” 

    That damage could come in the form of an unprecedented tax bill.

    In previous social media posts, Trump said Harvard “is a JOKE, teaches Hate and Stupidity, and should no longer receive Federal Funds” and should “be Taxed as a Political Entity.”

    Trump, as president, does not have unilateral legal authority to pull Harvard’s tax exemption, a status bestowed by the Internal Revenue Service. And neither the president nor employees of the executive office can legally direct the IRS to audit or investigate an institution. Federal law requires IRS employees who receive such directions to report them to the agency’s oversight office.

    Despite this, CNN reported in April that the IRS was making arrangements to revoke Harvard’s status, just after Trump posted on the matter.

    Such a change would significantly escalate Trump’s financial battle against Harvard that prompted the faculty pledge. The 11 faculty members leading the salary pledge said they intend for the signatories to hold a vote.

    “If the majority agrees that the university is making a good faith effort to use its own resources in support of staff, student, and academic programs, faculty will proceed with their donation,” their letter said.

    The pledge also acknowledged that not all faculty at Harvard are in a position to pledge 10% — or any — of their income and said the salary contribution plan is “only one of the various ways in which we can express solidarity around the university.”

    “We also know that many faculty are making important contributions to the Harvard community during this difficult time in other ways, by helping students and staff directly,” it said. 

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  • Appeals Court Upholds DOL’s Authority to Use Minimum Salary Threshold to Determine Overtime Exemptions

    Appeals Court Upholds DOL’s Authority to Use Minimum Salary Threshold to Determine Overtime Exemptions

    by CUPA-HR | September 12, 2024

    On September 11, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling in Mayfield v. U.S. Department of Labor that upholds DOL’s authority to implement a minimum salary threshold to determine exempt status under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) overtime pay requirements. While the ruling does not answer how other lawsuits challenging the Biden administration’s rule will be decided, the ruling is significant and could help other federal judges determine whether or not to strike down the Biden administration’s increased minimum salary thresholds.

    Background

    The case’s plaintiff, Robert Mayfield, filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration’s overtime rule in August 2022. In his lawsuit, he argued that the FLSA language on overtime exemptions only mentions a worker’s job-related duties and that implementing a salary threshold to determine exempt status exceeds DOL’s statutory authority. The Western District Court of Texas, a lower court where the lawsuit was originally filed, sided with DOL, stating that the agency has the statutory authority to implement the FLSA overtime minimum salary threshold. Mayfield appealed the decision to the 5th Circuit soon after.

    The Decision

    In its decision that sides with the Department of Labor, the 5th Circuit Court held that DOL may use a minimum salary requirement as part of its test for determining whether or not an employee qualifies as an executive, administrative and professional (EAP) employee exempt from the FLSA overtime pay requirements. Notably, the 5th Circuit Court argued that DOL does have statutory authority under the FLSA to use a salary threshold to “define and delimit the terms of exemption.”

    Though the decision allows for DOL to use a minimum salary threshold, the 5th Circuit Court did state that there is a limit to the power granted to DOL to do so. Specifically, the decision states that DOL may only use the minimum salary requirement to the extent that the salary threshold established in the regulations is a reasonable proxy for who is and who is not an EAP employee. They argued that DOL’s power to rely on proxy is not “unbounded” and that the agency “cannot enact rules that replace or swallow the meaning” of the FLSA’s terms that they seek to define.

    Looking Ahead

    Outside of the Mayfield case, there are three pending lawsuits in the Eastern District Court of Texas to challenge the Biden administration’s overtime final rule. That rule implements a two-phase approach to increasing the minimum salary threshold under the FLSA. The first increase took effect on July 1, increasing the minimum salary threshold from the current level of $684 per week ($35,568 per year) to $844 per week ($43,888 per year), and the second increase is set to take effect on January 1, 2025, increasing the minimum salary threshold again to $1,128 per week ($58,656 per year).

    The decision from the 5th Circuit does not have an immediate impact on the lawsuits challenging the Biden administration’s overtime rule, nor does it provide a definitive answer on how lower courts decide in those legal challenges. As such, the Biden administration’s July 1 salary threshold continues to be in effect,* and the second increase to the salary threshold is still set to take effect on January 1, 2025. CUPA-HR will keep members apprised of additional updates related to the FLSA overtime pay regulations.

    *A preliminary injunction to block DOL from enforcing the overtime final rule was placed for public employees in the state of Texas. Private institutions in Texas and all other institutions outside of Texas need to be in compliance with the July 1 salary threshold.



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  • DOL Increases Overtime Minimum Salary Threshold to $58,656 in Final Rule, Implements Automatic Updates – CUPA-HR

    DOL Increases Overtime Minimum Salary Threshold to $58,656 in Final Rule, Implements Automatic Updates – CUPA-HR

    by CUPA-HR | April 23, 2024

    On April 23, the Department of Labor (DOL) issued the highly anticipated final rule to alter the overtime pay regulations under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). The rule increases the minimum salary threshold to $43,888 on July 1, 2024, and then to $58,656 on January 1, 2025. The rule also implements automatic updates to the threshold that will occur every three years. Institutions will need to make all necessary adjustments by July 1, 2024, in order to be in compliance with the final rule.

    The department clarified that the first increase updates the minimum salary threshold using the department’s current methodology, which was used in the 2019 Trump-era overtime rulemaking to set the current standard of $35,568. The second increase then implements the department’s new preferred methodology, which sets the minimum salary threshold to the 35th percentile of weekly earnings of full-time salaried workers in the lowest wage census region. This phased-in implementation will likely impact how litigation challenging the rule is both pursued and decided over the next six months.

    In September 2023, DOL issued its proposed rule to update the minimum salary threshold, which sought to increase the threshold from its current level of $35,568 annually to $60,209 — a nearly 70% increase. The proposed rule also sought to implement triennial automatic updates based on the 35th percentile.

    CUPA-HR submitted comments in response to the proposed rule and participated in a meeting with DOL and officials from the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) to express our concerns with the proposal. In both the comments and OIRA meeting, CUPA-HR made the four following recommendations for DOL to consider before issuing their final rule:

    1. DOL should not update the salary threshold at this time.
    2. DOL should lower the proposed minimum salary threshold and account for room and board.
    3. DOL should not implement automatic updates to the salary threshold.
    4. DOL should extend the effective date of any final rule implementing a higher salary threshold.

    Lawsuits challenging the final rule are forthcoming. In the meantime, CUPA-HR will be hosting a webinar on May 8 covering the provisions of the final rule and its impact on higher education. Registration is open and free to all.



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  • Supreme Court: Highly Compensated Employee Entitled to Overtime Because Employer Did Not Pay on a Salary Basis – CUPA-HR

    Supreme Court: Highly Compensated Employee Entitled to Overtime Because Employer Did Not Pay on a Salary Basis – CUPA-HR

    by CUPA-HR | February 23, 2023

    On February 22, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision in Helix Energy Solutions, Inc. v. Hewitt, finding that an employee making over $200,000 per year was entitled to overtime pay under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) because he was not paid on a salary basis. The case is a reminder that exempt status depends not only on how much the employee is paid, but also on how they are paid. Employers may want to be particularly careful when providing exempt employees — including part-time exempt employees — with different weekly pay based on hours worked.

    Under U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) regulations, an employee must meet the following three requirements to be considered an executive, administrative or professional employee exempt from the FLSA’s overtime pay mandates: (1) perform duties consistent with those exempt categories as set forth by the DOL, (2) be paid a minimum salary (currently set at $684 per week), and (3) be paid on a salary basis. The employer in the case argued that the employee was exempt because he was paid $963 per day, therefore making at least the minimum salary of $684 per week, and he met the duties test for an executive.

    The court found, however, that the employee was not paid on a salary basis as set forth in Section 541.602 of DOL regulations and was therefore not exempt. Section 541.602 requires exempt employees to receive the full pre-determined salary for any week in which they perform any work without regard to the number of days or hours worked. Specifically, the court said the employee “did not get a salary (of $963 or any other amount) because his weekly take-home pay could be as little as $963 or as much as $13,482, depending on how many days he worked.” The court did say, however, that daily-rate workers could qualify as paid on a salary basis if the pay met the conditions set out in DOL regulations §541.604(b).

    In a dissenting opinion, Justice Brett Kavanaugh contended that the salary threshold and salary basis test — both of which DOL created through regulations — may not be consistent with the FLSA itself. Specifically, Kavanaugh said:

    “The Act focuses on whether the employee performs executive duties, not how much an employee is paid or how an employee is paid. So it is questionable whether the Department’s regulations — which look not only at an employee’s duties but also at how much an employee is paid and how an employee is paid — will survive if and when the regulations are challenged as inconsistent with the Act. It is especially dubious for the regulations to focus on how an employee is paid (for example, by salary, wage, commission, or bonus) to determine whether the employee is a bona fide executive. An executive employee’s duties (and perhaps his total compensation) may be relevant to assessing whether the employee is a bona fide executive. But I am hard pressed to understand why it would matter for assessing executive status whether an employee is paid by salary, wage, commission, bonus, or some combination thereof.”

    Since the employer in this case failed to raise the challenge to the regulations properly, the issue was not considered before the court.  As such, it remains unclear how many justices agree with Kavanaugh and whether the majority of the court would overturn the DOL’s salary basis and threshold tests.

    CUPA-HR continues to monitor all updates relating to the FLSA and its implementing regulations and will keep members apprised of significant news with respect to the overtime issue.



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  • 4 Considerations for Using Salary Data to Inform Compensation Decisions – CUPA-HR

    4 Considerations for Using Salary Data to Inform Compensation Decisions – CUPA-HR

    by Missy Kline | November 15, 2022

    Editor’s note: This blog post, originally published in April 2019, has been updated with additional resources and related content.

    Salary benchmarking is not one-size-fits-all — especially when you’re looking at groups as varied as administrators, professionals, staff and faculty on a college or university campus that is unique in its combination of Carnegie class, affiliation, regional location and mission. The question, then, is how to tailor your benchmarking efforts to take these variables into account and choose data that is appropriate to your unique needs.

    Here are four considerations to help you make the best use of salary data for compensation budget planning for your faculty and staff:

    1) Which institutions should your institution’s salaries be benchmarked against? Making the right comparisons — using position-specific data and carefully selected peers — can make all the difference when planning salaries that will make your institution competitive in the labor market. When you use CUPA-HR’s DataOnDemand, you can narrow down peer institutions by one or several institution-level criteria such as affiliation (public, private indephttp://cupahr.org/surveys/dataondemand/endent or private religious), Carnegie classification, enrollment size, geographic region, total expenses or other characteristics. Remember, balance is key: a larger comparison group gets you more robust data for comparison, but you must also make sure you are comparing to the right types of institutions that make sense for your goals.

    2) Not all faculty are the same. Tenure track faculty, non-tenure track teaching faculty, non-tenure track research faculty and adjunct faculty may each require unique compensation strategies, as do faculty members from different disciplines and ranks. Will the same salary increase help retain both tenured and non-tenured faculty? Does collective bargaining impact salary targets for some, but not all, of these faculty sub-groups? Are there unique, fast-growing, or in-demand departments/disciplines that require a separate strategy?

    3) Keep in mind that administrator salaries are broadly competitive. Like faculty, many administrative positions in higher ed are competitive at a national level. Often, institutions seek administrators with experience at other institutions of a similar size or mission, and with this experience and mobility comes an expectation of a competitive salary. As higher ed moves toward a “business model” where innovative leadership strategies are displacing more traditional shared governance models, finding administrators with the appropriate skills and expertise is becoming increasingly competitive, not only within higher education but sometimes against the broader executive employment market.

    4) Employment competition varies for staff and professionals. Many non-exempt staff are hired from within local labor markets, and therefore other institutions or companies in your state or local Metropolitan Statistical Area might be a better salary comparison than a nationwide set of peer institutions. Exempt or professional staff, however, may be more limited to competition from the higher ed sector, perhaps on a state or regional level. In addition, changes brought about by the pandemic (e.g., remote work opportunities, a desire to relocate) have made many professional positions more globally competitive. Are your institution’s salaries for these employees appropriately scoped for the market in which you need to compete?

     

    Additional Articles and Resources

    How One College Is Using Salary Data to Ensure Pay Equity and Market-Par Compensation

    Compensation Programs/Plans, Executive Compensation in Higher Ed, Equal Pay Act (CUPA-HR Toolkits)

    Working in a Fish Bowl: How One Community College System Navigated a Compensation Study in a Transparent Environment (Higher Ed HR Magazine)



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