No Salary Review

University of North Carolina system officials have no current plans to order a statewide review of salaries after North Carolina State University acknowledged last week that it has not adhered to the system's pay raise policy since 2002, according to a system spokeswoman. "There are no plans for a widespread review," said Joni Worthington, a spokeswoman for the UNC system. "There doesn't appear to be any indication that it is required." NCSU is reviewing hundreds of salaries in the wake of news reports that Mary Easley, wife of Gov. Mike Easley, received an 88 percent pay raise, increasing her annual salary for her executive-in-residence position at the university to $170,000. A university system policy requires raises of more than 15 percent and $10,000 to be approved by the UNC system's governing board. Worthington said other campuses will be asked to verify they've adhered to the policy.
NCSU officials say they didn't think until recently that the university system policy applied to Easley's situation because it does not cover new job hires, which is what they considered her new appointment. Her job changed, and she received a fixed five-year work term, but some of her duties and her title remained unchanged. Now, NCSU will review more than 800 fixed-term contracts. It must conduct the review before the next UNC Board of Governors meeting in September. (Eric Ferreri, THE NEWS & OBSERVER, 7/12/08).