photo by: Shawn Valverde/Special to the Journal-World

The University of Kansas campus is pictured in this aerial photo from September 2023.

Inflation is going down, and so too is the size of the pay raises at the University of Kansas.

According to new documents with the Kansas Board of Regents, most KU faculty and staff members will receive a 2% raise for the next school year. That’s down from a recent high of 5% in 2022, when inflation levels were running hotter. It also is down slightly from a 2.5% cost-of-living increase last year.

The new pay information was revealed as part of a memorandum of understanding between KU and the new union that represents faculty members at KU. That MOU, which was approved by the Kansas Board of Regents at a special meeting earlier this week, said KU leaders had agreed to give union members the same 2% cost-of-living increase that other KU employees are set to receive this school year.

The 2% increases, though, may not be the only pay raise that some university employees receive. The MOU also spells out a process that would guarantee that faculty members who win promotions would receive significantly larger increases.

In what is described as a “pilot program,” faculty members who are promoted from an assistant professor to an associate professor will receive either a $6,500 raise or a 9% raise, whichever is greater. Faculty members who are promoted to a full professor will receive either a $12,000 raise or a 12% raise, whichever is greater.

“But that is tens of people,” Jeff DeWitt, KU’s chief financial officer, told Regents of the number of people who likely would receive such promotions in a year. “We are not talking about like hundreds of people.”

While such raises may not be great in number, DeWitt told the Regents that they are expected to play a large role in helping KU retain top faculty members.

The MOU document also states that KU is still working on a plan to increase wages of specific university positions that are at “risk of turnover.” KU has been conducting compensation studies to determine whether there are KU staff positions that are earning significantly less than similar positions in the private sector or less than what faculty members are earning at other major research universities.

As the Journal-World reported in May, the university estimated that employees ranging from custodians to professors are underpaid by about $27 million per year. The plan is to provide those employees with raises to bring their wages more in line with the broader market. However, KU has said it will have to make such wage adjustments in phases, and the initiative will likely take several years to complete.

The MOU document showed that initiative is still active, but it did not provide any information on how many or what types of employees should expect pay raises as part of the program this school year.

“Our jumps in pay were very, very noncompetitive with our peers,” DeWitt said of the past raises that promoted faculty members received.

An attempt to reach DeWitt on Wednesday for an update on the status of the program wasn’t immediately successful. In addition, the MOU document didn’t spell out how KU officials landed on the 2% cost-of-living increase. Earlier in the year, there had been discussion of a 2.5% cost-of-living increase for employees.

The fact that KU and the faculty union — United Academics of KU — have reached agreement on the wage issues does not mean that the union and the university have concluded their labor negotiations.

In fact, those negotiations have not begun in earnest. Instead, DeWitt told Regents that the MOU was simply a measure that needed to be taken to ensure that union employees were eligible to receive the pay increases that are set to go into effect for the entire university later this month.

In the MOU, the union reserves the right to negotiate for additional pay and benefit items, among other issues. It is not clear when full-scale negotiations will begin between KU and the union, which was formed in May. DeWitt told Regents that those initial negotiations could take more than a year to complete, based on how the process has played out at other universities. An attempt to reach a spokesperson for the union on Wednesday for comment was not immediately successful.

photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World

The Hawker apartment complex at 1011 Missouri St. is pictured on March 18, 2024.

In other business, the Regents also approved a five-year lease agreement that will allow KU to use an apartment complex near campus for student housing.

As the Journal-World reported in March, the KU Endowment Association purchased the Hawker Apartment complex at 1011 Missouri St., which is just north of the football stadium. The Endowment Association purchased the complex solely to help KU meet demand for student housing, which has become tighter as enrollments have increased and after KU closed about 400 aging housing units in the Jayhawker Towers complex.

The lease agreement approved by Regents is the final step for KU leaders to begin using the 216-bed apartment complex. The lease agreement calls for KU to pay between $1.3 million to $1.9 million per year to the Endowment Association for use of the complex.

Regents were told that the lease payments are covering the costs that KU Endowment incurred to purchase the apartment complex. KU expects to take over ownership of the apartment complex in the coming years, which will be significant because it will remove the property from the tax rolls. Currently KU will pay property taxes on the apartment complex, in addition to the annual lease payments.

In addition to the Hawker Complex — which DeWitt said is housing a majority of the KU football team — KU is leasing 200 beds in the HERE apartment complex near 11th and Mississippi streets, and 504 beds in privately owned Naismith Hall at the corner of 19th and Naismith.

Despite the private rentals, the Regents were told KU in June still had 50 students on a wait list for student housing. KU hasn’t released enrollment estimates for the new school year, but KU Chancellor Douglas Girod has previously said he does expect enrollment totals to be up some from a year ago.