By Associated Press
Buffalo, NY – The University at Buffalo and the state university system may face millions of dollars in faculty pay increases following an arbitrator's decision in a complaint filed by a medical professor.
In his ruling, arbitrator Peter Prosper said that minimum salary levels set out in the SUNY contract apply to medical school faculty. The ruling could alter how the State University of New York's four medical schools pay hundreds of clinical faculty members who currently do not receive a salary.
The cost to the University at Buffalo alone could reach $12 million a year, with $4 million more to the health science centers at Syracuse, Stony Brook and Brooklyn, one union official said. The state estimated the cost at $11.8 million total for the first year.
The state is challenging the arbitrator's decision.
"If the ... award is not vacated, the financial impact will be felt not only by the SUNY hospitals, but by the entire SUNY community," the state attorney general's office's said in an appeal.
In its 2005 budget request released earlier this month, SUNY officials sought $8 million in new state aid to cover the cost of the arbitrator's decision.
The ruling came in a grievance filed by United University Professions on behalf of Dr. Linda Brodsky, a pediatric ear, nose and throat physician and UB professor.
Brodsky is one of a number of faculty members at the medical schools classified as "geographic full-time" faculty. They teach on a full-time basis, but nearly all of their compensation - including health benefits and pensions - comes from their outside practice.
United University Professions, the faculty union, argued that SUNY is violating the faculty contract, which sets a minimum pay rate for professors.
Brodsky argued that she has to work harder at her clinical practice to make up for her low medical school salary, about $33,000. A UB employee since 1983, she earns $250,000 a year total.
Raymond Dannenhoffer, head of the union for UB health science faculty and staff, said the suit is not an attempt by doctors to fatten their bank accounts. Most faculty members who received an increase in state pay and benefits would cut back on their practice hours to spend more time teaching students, conducting research and other tasks, he said.
Contract minimums are roughly $55,000 for full professors, $45,000 for associates and $35,000 for assistants, he said.
University officials would not comment because the arbitration case is pending.
Prosper's ruling for the moment applies only to Brodsky and new hires. But United University Professions has filed a class-action grievance on behalf of all health science faculty, Dannenhoffer said.
SUNY currently employs 393 geographical full-time faculty members.