At the Faculty Senate meeting last week, Senate Chair Bruce Balick said that this year, the senators will face the issue of the maintenance of faculty salary policy during a financial crisis, which has led to successful lawsuits against the UW in the past.

In March 2009, Emmert created Executive Order No. 29, suspending 2 percent meritorious salary increases, which faculty typically have received annually every year since the year 2000, through the 2009-2011 biennium and allowing for a re-evalution of policy in times when no new money is available. However, sections 24-70-B-1 and 24-71-B-1 of the Faculty Code still call for annual merit increases, which is in direct conflict with Executive Order No. 29.

Though this problem seems like a minor technicality, failure to bring the two pieces to harmony could cost the university millions.

In 2004, Duane Sorti, a mechanical engineering professor at UW, filed a lawsuit against the university because it had failed to award faculty members their 2 percent salary increase for the 2002-2003 school year. Though university officials argued that the Legislature had not provided sufficient funding that year to cover the raises, the judge in the case said that the promise in the faculty code was considered an official contract and ruled in favor of Sorti. The two-year court battle resulted in the UW losing $17.5 million in a settlement.

“[The re-evaluation found in Executive Order No. 29] is what was missing in 2002 when the administration declared there would be no merit increase, and that’s a primary reason the judge issued a preliminary judgment in Storti’s favor that eventually led to the settlement,” said Senator David Lovell in a faculty e-mail. “The Regents, without rewriting the code or mentioning any specific provisions, stipulated that the new Executive Order No. 29 was the official policy of the university for this biennium and that anything that appeared to conflict was suspended, to the extent that it conflicted.”

But the Regents’ claim is a temporary solution at best. As long as the conflict remains written in the provisions, the UW faces potential legal problems. Now, the faculty senate is working with the administration to find ways to honor the intentions of the Regents and avoid faculty lawsuits without having to rewrite the Code.

“Whether there is any need for legislation to amend the Code is one of the issues being discussed in these meetings,” Lovell said.

Faculty Senate secretary Marcia Killien is on the committee that will meet with the administration this year. As of now, Killien said the senate doesn’t have any specific strategies for addressing the issue.

“There have been some informal discussions,” she said, “but we actually have not [started] having meetings yet.”

Balick said that if the Regents think the committee is unsuccessful in accomplishing its goal, they may use their authority to change the Code themselves.

“We all agree that, should the Regents effect any code changes on their own volition, then a very unwanted and dangerous precedent will have been established,” Balick said. “We hope and believe that such action is avoidable. By all accounts, the Regents have not done such a thing since 1956 when the Code was written, and none of us really wants to force their hand now over raises that lie well outside of UW’s present budget and fly in the face of the Governor’s decrees.”

Reach reporter Katie McVicker at news@dailyuw.com.