photo by: University of Kansas

The skyline of the University of Kansas is pictured.

If you are any type of professor at the University of Kansas, you shall make at least $70,000 per year, recently-released details of a proposed contract between KU and its faculty union show.

However, if you already are making that amount, you might not receive anything more than a 1% raise, and that is only guaranteed for the first year of the three-year contract, according to the new documents.

As reported earlier this month, KU and the new union, United Academics of KU, reached a tentative agreement on an inaugural labor contract that will cover the approximately 1,600 faculty members at the Lawrence campus.

But details of the tentative contract just recently were publicly released, as union members are set to go to the polls on Wednesday and Thursday to decide whether to ratify the contract.

The documents show that KU administration did not budge on the key provision of its pay proposal: It doesn’t support large, across-the-board pay increases.

Instead, the university’s position is that pay increases should be based on promotions and other merit raises following positive employee evaluations. But the tentative pay plan also does recognize that significant numbers of KU faculty members are making wages less than their peers at other, similar research universities.

The proposed contract seeks to address that issue by setting new minimum wage levels for a host of faculty positions ranging from professors to lecturers to librarians. Those minimum wage levels are expected to provide a median increase of 14% for 400 faculty members who are found to be making significantly less than their peers elsewhere, according to new information released by the union.

More specific details about the pay plan — such as how much money KU is expecting to spend to bring wages up to the new minimums — haven’t been released. The contract documents don’t answer all those questions, but they do provide new details about what would be the first ever union agreement between KU and its faculty.

Here’s a look at some key details:

• The contract sets minimum base salary levels for the following positions: Assistant Professor: $70,000; Associate Professor: $76,500; Full Professor: $88,500; Distinguished Professor: $103,500. Librarians — which have similar ranks as professors — would receive those same minimums. The contract also sets minimum wage levels for lecturers at $52,500 to $64,167, depending on a few variables

• The contract creates guaranteed raises for when a faculty member receives a promotion. They include: From Assistant Professor to Associate Professor: 9% raise, or at least $6,500; From Associate Professor to Full Professor: 12% raise, or at least $12,000; From Full Professor to Distinguished Professor: 12% raise, or at least $15,000. From Lecturer to Senior Lecturer: 9% raise or at least $4,875.

• In the current year, $1.5 million would be set aside in a merit pool fund that department chairs and other leaders of university divisions could seek to use to provide raises to employees in their departments. Under the terms of the contract, no employee could receive more than a 3% raise from that pool of money. The $1.5 million also would not be enough money to ensure that all faculty members received a 3% raise. Only employees that receive a rating of “Good” or better on their annual evaluation would be eligible for a merit wage increase. The contract establishes five rating categories for annual evaluations: Excellent, Very Good, Good, Marginal and Poor.

• Faculty members who did not receive a raise as part of the change in minimum compensation levels would receive a 1% salary increase this year.

• The labor contract between the union and KU would last for three years, but several of the compensation provisions are not guaranteed for the full three-year term of the contract. For example, KU administration has not committed to providing merit wage increases for the second and third year of the contract. It also has not committed to providing the 1% across-the-board wage increase for eligible employees in the second and third year of the contracts. Rather KU administration has agreed to conduct more negotiations with the union on wage levels for the second and third year of the contract.

While wage and salary issues were a major part of the negotiations, the 104-page agreement between the union and KU covers many additional topics. Here’s a look at some of the key non-wage provisions of the agreement.

• One section spells out the importance of academic freedom. The section includes language that makes clear that faculty members and others covered by the contract could not be punished by the university for personal statements they have made, as long as faculty members have not stated or implied they are speaking on behalf of the university. Specifically, the agreement says a faculty member when speaking in a personal capacity will “have the right to the same freedom of expression as other individuals regarding political rights and privileges without fear of institutional censorship, reprisal or discipline.”

• Faculty members and other employees covered by the contract would have a formal process for appealing the findings of their annual employee evaluations. The process allows the employee, with the assistance of a union representative, to appeal the employee evaluation all the way up to the Provost for reconsideration.

• The contract also creates a grievance process for covered employees to contest any item that they believe is in violation of the labor agreement. That can include issues of discipline taken against an employee. The grievance process allows for multiple hearings at the department, school and provost levels. If unresolved, the union can take the matter to arbitration. However, the agreement does not give the arbiter the final say in any dispute. Rather, the arbiter will make a recommendation to the university’s “final decision maker,” which varies depending on the nature of the dispute. If the dispute involves the termination of employees, the chancellor is the final decision maker. If it involves written warnings, suspension or other such disciplinary actions, the provost is the final decision maker. If the dispute involves other non-disciplinary matters, the vice provost for faculty affairs would be the final decision maker.

Union leadership has announced multiple informational meetings this week for union members to learn more about the tentative agreement. Union members then will be asked to vote electronically either on Wednesday or Thursday to ratify the agreement.

As part of that vote, union members also will be asked to approve a dues structure for union membership. The union is proposing that dues for 2026 be 1% of an employee’s pay, with increases to 1.25% in 2027 and 1.5% in 2028. Under Kansas law, covered employees can’t be made to join the union, even though the provisions of the labor contract would apply to them. People who agree to join the union, however, would be required to pay dues, and they would be deducted from their KU payroll checks.

If approved by union members, the Kansas Board of Regents would be asked to approve the labor contract in the coming weeks, at which point the contract would commence.