HAMMOND – Southeastern announced merit raises for its faculty and staff for the first time in nearly seven years Friday.

SLU President John Crain said some $3 million in the university’s current budget will be allocated to raises. The raises apply to full-time faculty and staff employed as of June 30.

Raises will be about 5.25% of the current salary base, the university said in a news release. Individual faculty and unclassified staff raises may be more or less than this amount as recommended by the supervisor, and will vary based on the amount of the departmental raise pool, each employee’s prior years’ merit evaluations, and other relevant factors.  

Southeastern has approximately 1,100 faculty and staff. 

“While the overarching goal of the raise plan is to be as fair and equitable as possible, attempting to compensate for multiple years of foregone merit raises is necessarily complicated and difficult, given our finite resources,” he said.

Classified staff at Southeastern will receive raises in accordance with Louisiana Civil Service rules. 

Once approved by the board of supervisors, raises will be effective retroactively to July 1.

“I wish the raise amounts were greater, given the long dry spell without pay raises,” he added. “However, I am very happy to be communicating with the campus community about pay raises rather than budget cuts as so often has been the case in recent years.”

LSU announced a similar plan recently.

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