To: CALS Faculty and Staff

From: Dean Wendy Wintersteen

During the past several weeks, there have been several announcements regarding faculty and staff benefits, salary increases and the new retirement incentive option, RIO3. Here is a recap:

First, the university's contribution to employees’ TIAA-CREF accounts will be restored to the full 10% on July 1. The contribution was reduced to 8% last fall to help meet the mid-year budget reduction.

Second, $3.5 million in state funding has been made available to award individual salary increases. The President’s announcement stated that “salary funds may be provided to individual faculty, P&S staff, postdocs and graduate assistants when funding is available and an increase can be justified to address equity, merit or retention.” (More details: http://www.iastate.edu/Inside/2010/0506/pay.php)

The College of Agriculture and Life Sciences/Experiment Station was allocated $557,630 in salary increase funds. After factoring in benefits associated with any increases and also approved retention packages, nearly $400,000 remains. The College plans to allocate the remaining funds to correct internal salary equity issues for high-performing faculty, P&S staff, postdocs and graduate assistants paid on state monies. It is important to recognize that we will not have adequate funds to address all the equity issues in the College, but we hope to be able to address some of the most compelling situations.

Third, information about the new Retirement Incentive Option, or RIO3, and the new Phased Plus Retirement Program is available at the Human Resources’ Benefits page, under “Retirement Benefits,” http://www.hrs.iastate.edu/hrs/benefits. If you’re 55 years or older with 10 or more years of service at ISU, you’re eligible to apply for either program.

The CALS budget plan for FY11 has been accepted and now is complete. The budget plan, with a link dated April 12, is now posted on the CALS budget updates page, http://www.ag.iastate.edu/budget/.

Thank you for your continued contributions to the College’s missions. I wish you the best as you head into the summer. I am looking forward to the fall semester when it’s highly likely we will welcome an incoming undergraduate class that’s even larger than last fall, which was the highest enrollment in 30 years.

Please let me know if you have questions or comments.