The University of Florida is planning to give faculty and staff members raises. The Friday announcement comes less than a month after nearly $50 million in budget cuts that included layoffs, and that's not sitting well with some UF faculty members.
UF administrators say the budget cuts and the raises are unrelated issues, but Faculty Union President John Biro says he disagrees. He says the raises prove the layoffs never had to happen, and he says that the administration's plan for dishing out "merit-based" raises is flawed.
"We have made proposals about how to do this," said Biro concerning the raises, "we have proposed these proposals for months and administration comes back by saying we're leaving it to administrators to decide. That's not acceptable."
Biro says the faculty union favors a system where a group of faculty members would decide what qualifies as "merit," as opposed to individual administrators making the decision. The money for the raises is coming from student tuition hikes.