Regents Consider Salary Hike

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) _ Faculty and staff at the University of Oklahoma's Norman campus would receive a 3% salary increase under a proposal to be considered this week by OU regents. <br/><br/>The regents

Tuesday, September 11th 2007, 11:42 am

By: News On 6

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) _ Faculty and staff at the University of Oklahoma's Norman campus would receive a 3% salary increase under a proposal to be considered this week by OU regents.

The regents met Tuesday afternoon and will meet Wednesday morning at OU's Tulsa campus. The portion of the agenda covering OU business will be conducted Wednesday.

If regents approve, the 3% salary increase for the current fiscal year _ which would total about $6.8 million _ would become effective Oct. 1 and be distributed across the board. Individual university departments would be allowed to award additional merit increases.

A 3% percent raise proposal for OU-Tulsa employees also is on the agenda. Proposed personnel moves include promoting OU Law School Dean Andy Coats to university vice president, although his annual salary of $307,028 will not change, and giving former state Sen. President Pro Tem Cal Hobson _ who has been the director of OU's adult executive training programs since February _ a $10,000 annual raise to $75,000. Hobson's title also would change to interim executive director of operations for OU's College of Continuing Education.

OU President David Boren also is asking regents to fund a proposed Textbooks on Reserve Program with an annual budget of $200,000. Boren announced plans for the program during a meeting in June in which regents approved tuition hikes of 9.7 percent for in-state students and 9.9 percent for out-of-state students. He said then such a program would help students and families dealing with rising college costs.

Under the program, the university would purchase textbooks for large, required general education courses and place them on reserve at the library for students to use. Boren also has said he is encouraging OU faculty members to avoid requiring new editions of textbooks for their courses if earlier editions are adequate.

Two other agenda items would extend multimillion dollar agreements involving OU.

One would increase the contract term extension between OU and Sooner Sports Properties, the company that holds the multimedia rights to OU athletics. The contract term ended June 30, with a provision that the parties could extend it by three years to 2010. The proposal is that the contract be extended by 10 years, to 2017.

According to the proposal on the agenda, an increase in the extension term to 10 years ``significantly increases the average annual compensation in guaranteed license fees and other financial considerations over that provided in the previous contract or available in a three-year extension.''

The average annual guaranteed license fee will increase from $2.65 million under the previous term of the contract to an average annual amount of $7.1 million, according to the proposal.

Another proposal would award The Coca-Cola Co. of Atlanta and the Great Plains Coca-Cola Bottling Co. of Oklahoma City beverage and snack vending rights on the Norman campus for a 10-year period beginning Aug. 1, 2008, with the university receiving $17,900,800 in financial support. A previous 10-year contract between the companies and OU will expire at the end of July 2008.