As the university and University System of Maryland have continued to make up lost financial ground since the budget cuts of 2002, potential and current faculty are hoping this year’s larger budget will allow the state to heed years of concerns employee retirement benefits are not up to par.

System officials said they have lobbied legislators for the past five years to increase retirement pensions and state contribution to optional retirement plans. Compared to benefits given in other states, Maryland’s are not competitive and system officials are worried the issue is having a lingering effect on their ability to hire faculty to fill numerous vacant positions.

“The faculty don’t want to appear greedy,” said Martha Siegel, chairwoman of the system’s faculty council. “On the other hand, we’re hiring and we want to be able to hire good people and retain good people.”

Faculty members want to see the state provide a higher percentage into faculty retirement plans, officials said. According to Provost Bill Destler, the state pays 7.25 percent of an employee’s paycheck to their retirement fund, while at comparable institutions across the country, the figure is closer to 11 or 12 percent.

Since the funds are optional plans, such as TIAA-CREF, and are essentially only used by the younger generation of state employees, Destler said it is seemingly not a high priority because it is not deemed to affect many state employees.

“One of the reasons it doesn’t seem to go very far each year – and it’s mentioned almost every year – is the number of people who would benefit is not small, but its not huge,” Destler said. “They probably figure there are bigger fish to fry.”

At this university, about 100 research positions are vacant, said university President Dan Mote in a testimony to the General Assembly in February.

In 2001, the system lobbied for a bill that would have increased state contribution to one percent in one year and two the following. The bill passed in different versions to the House and Senate, yet died because there was no agreement made to rectify the bills’ differences.

In 2002, the state’s economy plummeted, forcing faculty to shelve their request once again.

With a state surplus, faculty members are hopeful this could be their year.

However, Siegel said she is doubtful the budget will do anything this year because they haven’t heard any new information from state legislators.

“The Board of Regents stated a goal on our salary and that we would be at 85 percentile,” she said. “We were nearly there until we slipped way down again. … We’re certainly not going to climb very high in the ’07 budget.”

There are two retirement plans faculty members can use as state employees. One is the state retirement plan, which older workers typically have, that ensures employees specific benefits when they retire.

Relatively new optional plans, taken more frequently by newer hires, give employees a greater control of their benefits depending on their investments and the stock market.

Some argue faculty salaries and benefits should be one of the system’s dashboard indicators – performance levels are annually monitored by the Board of Regents and used as reminders so the system doesn’t drop these issues.

Regent Pat Florestano said at February’s full Board of Regents meeting faculty salary should be placed on the dashboard indicators and believes the system has already lost some of its competitiveness.

“We’re having great difficulty attracting faculty,” she said at the meeting. “Sadly, faculty are looking at that retirement piece and leaving. We are going to have problems if we continue in these present conditions.”

At the same meeting, Frostburg University President Catherine Gira echoed the same concerns and said she already lost one potential hire because of the retirement salary.

“Some campuses are significantly below their peers, and those need to be addressed rather quickly,” Siegel said. “If you want to recruit good faculty members, you have to pay them. It can make the difference between coming to our schools or not.”

Contact reporters Scott Dance and Laurie Au at dancedbk@gmail.com.