After the Board of Regents approved a $25,000 bonus for President Louis Caldera, Susan Carkeek said he is in the same boat as the faculty - except little to no faculty members have bonuses included in their contracts.
Carkeek is the director of human resources at UNM.
"You don't do these jobs for the money," Caldera said. "That's the way they structured the contract, and that's fine."
Regents said they gave Caldera his performance bonus because of the Budget Summit, his extensive work with Mesa del Sol, his ability to work with the regents, his work toward improving UNM's image, and his establishment of goals for the next year.
Regent Mel Eaves said they are working with Caldera to establish a joint set of goals that could possibly be voted on at the next regents meeting.
"I think he's fulfilled all of our expectations that we had when we hired him," Eaves said. "The first year has been difficult for many reasons. He's done very, very well, and I'm very pleased."
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Along with the bonus, Caldera's contract outlines a raise equivalent to the faculty and staff raise. He received a 5 percent raise to his base pay, which comes out to $13,500 more a year. UNM faculty and staff not in a union bargaining unit received raises between 2 and 8 percent.
The 2 percent increase reflects the cost of living.
"To do more than that, they award to people who made extra contributions to the department or the University," Carkeek said.
The money for raises comes from an addition to the salary budget, which has to be approved by the regents. Last year, they approved a 5 percent allocation to UNM departments to distribute to faculty and staff. Carkeek said the average raise was about 6 percent.
"It actually turned out to be higher than the budgeted amount, which is a great outcome," she said.
But smaller departments see less merit-based raises than larger departments, Carkeek said.
In larger departments, more job vacancies could mean more money for raises.
"I empathize with the departments that don't have turnover, because they are getting the same 5 percent," she said.
But for members of a union bargaining unit, merit-based pay is not outlined concretely in their contracts.
"When it comes to salaries, we're always lagging behind," said Marco Romero, treasurer of United Staff-UNM, a staff union.
Instead of working toward merit pay, he said the union strives for equity pay.
"We're interested in defending the weakest members of the community," he said, adding those who do more than the minimum should be recognized.
Regent Mar°a Griego-Raby said the system should be looked at more closely at the University to make sure the people who are performing well get raises for it.
"It's not a perfect system by any means," Carkeek said. "It's a struggle. For the moment, it's the system we are trying to work with."
