March 28, 2024

A Message from President Paino: State Budget

Dear Colleagues,

The state budget passed by the 2016 General Assembly included funding for a 3% salary increase for faculty and staff effective November 10, 2016.  The allocation of these funds, however, was contingent upon the state meeting specific revenue thresholds for the 2015-16 fiscal year.  Although fiscal year revenue collections grew from the prior year, the growth was not sufficient to meet the financial benchmark required to move forward automatically with the planned salary increase.

The Governor and the General Assembly have made salary increases for state employees a top priority, so we now await their collective response to news of this shortfall.  Absent any additional action in the next few months, funding for employee salary increases will likely become part of the state budget process for amending the budget in the next regular session of the General Assembly (January 2017).

We will continue to monitor the situation and pass along any additional information as it becomes available to us.

Please let me or Rick Pearce, Vice President for Administration and Finance & CFO, know if you have any questions.

Sincerely,

Troy