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FY23 Merit Pay Guidance

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In January, we were delighted to learn that Governor Hogan granted a comprehensive compensation package for eligible state employees at the University of Maryland to include a bonus, COLA, and merit funding in recognition of the excellent and important work that members of our campus community perform. This package is being/will be delivered in two rounds. The first round, FY22, is retroactive to January 2, 2022, and is being distributed over three paychecks, as per the guidance issued by University Human Resources on January 31, 2022 and February 3, 2022.  The second round is for FY23 and is effective July 1, 2022.

The Office of Faculty Affairs (OFA) has received a number of questions regarding the University’s faculty merit pay policy, as amended on September 8, 2017. Informed by these queries, OFA is providing the below guidance and reminders related to FY23 faculty merit pay reviews and eligibility according to the University’s policy.

  • Eligibility. Tenured/tenure-track (TTK) faculty, permanent status/permanent status-track librarian faculty, and professional track (PTK) faculty are eligible for merit pay and should be integrated into merit pay procedures within each unit. 
  • Plan and plan approval. Many units updated their faculty merit pay plans when the University’s policy changed in 2017. For those units that may need to update their plans, unit plans may integrate all faculty (e.g.,TTK and PTK; Librarian and PTK) into one merit pay distribution plan, or may develop separate plans for different groups of faculty. Unit faculty merit pay plans approved through unit governance procedures must also be approved by the Dean and then by the Senate’s Faculty Affairs Committee. 
  • Review process. Merit pay review processes for TTK faculty, instructional PTK faculty, and librarian faculty must be conducted by an elected committee. 
    • Units may constitute a single merit review committee for all of their faculty or separate committees for each type of faculty. 
    • Units must also develop appropriate procedures for the review of PTK research faculty. These may be conducted by committee or by another mechanism approved by the unit head.
  • Review cycle and periodicity. Merit reviews should be conducted annually and factor the performance of faculty members over the immediate past three years. Units may take into account performance since the last time merit pay was available should merit not be available annually. Faculty should not be penalized if they have fewer than three years of service. 

We encourage unit heads to review the University’s faculty merit pay policy for the full requirements of the policy and ensure that their units are in compliance with the policy’s requirements. A Senate Task Force was convened in 2010, charged with reviewing the existing implementation of the policy and making recommendations for improvements. The Task Force report is available here. A checklist was developed by the Task Force in 2010 for use by units in reviewing their merit pay distribution plans. The checklist is available here. An additional checklist was developed after the policy was updated in 2017 to include PTK faculty. This checklist, focused on PTK faculty, is available here.

Please note that each year, the University is required to report to the University System of Maryland and the state of Maryland activities in which faculty are engaged. We gather these data through the University’s faculty reporting system, Faculty Success. In order to be eligible for the FY23 merit pay, TTK faculty must complete their 2021 faculty annual report during the currently in progress reporting window (January 18, 2022-March 11, 2022). PTK and Librarian faculty should check with their appropriate supervisors regarding whether they should complete their annual report to be eligible for the FY23 merit pay.

OFA has developed guidance for units that may wish to use Faculty Success to facilitate their merit review processes. This guidance, and other resources on using Faculty Success, is available here. For further assistance with Faculty Success, please contact fs-help@umd.edu.