Takeaway: 1) If you are a Principal Investigator (PI) with grant-funded positions, read the latter part of this email for detailed instructions on how to make sure you get grant and startup funds restored. 2) Sign up to join our union when we visit administration officials to demand they abide our contracts: Monday, August 14, 12 p.m., at Winants Hall (7 College Ave.).
Dear colleagues,
Among the administration’s many errors and delays, our union has been organizing this summer to stop the administration from violating one of the most important gains in our new contracts: a commitment to central funding of raises for grant-funded faculty, postdocs, and grad workers.
As we wrote in late June, the administration is in breach of our contract. They have at least acknowledged that grant and startup funds can’t be raided to pay for salary increases. But they instead want to push the cost onto departments and schools, while avoiding their contractual obligation to centrally fund raises beyond what is already budgeted for.
Last week, we met with Chief Financial Officer J. Michael Gower and other Rutgers officials to get answers about how grant funds would be restored. If you are a Principal Investigator (PI), you should read the latter part of this message for detailed instructions on how to make sure you get your funds back.
But this is a fight for our whole union. We need to work together to get the administration to honor our contract, including central funding of raises, funding extensions for all grads whose work was affected by the pandemic, and other important issues. Our unions will send a message to Gower and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs Prabhas Moghe on Monday, August 14, at 12 p.m.—with a visit to their offices in Winants Hall (7 College Ave., New Brunswick) to demand the administration abide by our contracts!
Fill out this form if you want to participate next Monday or in the future.
Important Reading for PIs: How to Get Your Funds Restored
If your grant and startup accounts were charged for any unbudgeted salary increases (and a proportionally increased fringe rate) won in our new contract, that is a violation of our agreement with the university. Chief Financial Officer J. Michael Gower and Senior Vice President for Research Michael Zwick acknowledged in a memo you received in June that grant funds and startup funds should not be used to pay union-negotiated raises beyond increases already in the approved budget.
Last Thursday, union leaders and members who are Principal Investigators met with Gower and the Office of University Labor Relations to understand the process and timeline for reimbursing impacted accounts. In that meeting, Gower affirmed the University’s commitment to the terms of our contract. He committed to further communication to clarify what PIs, departments, and schools need to do to document the unbudgeted costs of negotiated increases, and he promised to work with chancellors to make sure these costs are covered by the University.
Since the increases were paid using existing procedures that charge your accounts, Gower said the administration will have to reverse the process and restore the amounts charged to your accounts. In the meantime, he committed to creating a process to facilitate the day-to-day work of your research to continue, including purchasing of supplies and equipment and charging summer pay onto grants.
The June memo from Gower and Zwick reads: “This difference, if applicable, must be covered by the department. If the department cannot cover the remaining funds, then departments should request assistance from the school and schools may, in turn, request support from the Chancellor as needed.” With no centrally planned process in place yet, it appears the following steps will be necessary to get grant and startup funds restored:
- PIs should work with their business office to identify the relevant salaries on their grants (grads, postdocs, and NTT and TT faculty) and determine the difference of both salaries and associated fringe between the approved budgeted amounts and the actual amounts after salary increases.
- Requests for reimbursement of these funds should follow the normal flow: PI requests to department chair or institute/center director, chair to dean, dean/institute director/center director to chancellor.
- If the chancellor doesn’t have available or appropriately budgeted funds, they should contact Gower’s office to request that the University cover the costs.
Of course, it is highly inefficient to ask the roughly 1,600 PIs at Rutgers, overseeing around 4,200 grants, to gather all this information individually. In addition, many people, including our hard-working staff colleagues, are rightfully taking much-needed time off with their families right now, and departments are prioritizing preparation for the fall semester.
The process of checking each grant is burdensome and time-consuming for all of us. A simpler calculation of overall budgets and credits back to our accounts while detailed checks are done would be more efficient for our research needs. Likewise, a simple assumption that department budgets have not accounted for grant-funded positions—which is likely in the vast majority of cases—would simplify and speed resolution of the issue.
Many of you have already shared details about how your grants have been charged for the raises. If you haven’t yet, please click here and fill out the form.
If you are experiencing difficulty ordering supplies and equipment or hiring new researchers or staff because the unbudgeted increases are showing as a charge on your account, you should write to SVP Zwick at svp@research.rutgers.edu so his office can clear your account for purchases or hires. We have an agreement with the administration that research will not be disrupted because the administration has not implemented a process to restore grant funds and pay for unbudgeted salary increases.
If we don’t see tangible progress this week, we will call on you to take further action to properly implement the contract and support your research. We will hold a regularly scheduled meeting for PIs and researchers today, August 10, at 12 noon to discuss these issues, provide updates, and plan further action. You can register for the link by clicking here. And we hope any of you who can will attend the action at Gower’s and Moghe’s offices on Monday, August 14, at 12 noon at Winants Hall (7 College Ave.). Fill out this form if you can attend.
In solidarity,
Todd Wolfson, President, Rutgers AAUP-AFT
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