The University of Oregon announced in a statement Tuesday that it is indefinitely freezing certain pay actions, effective immediately, due to financial uncertainty that the COVID-19 pandemic has caused. The freeze applies to some forms of future pay increases for employees but will not impact the current pay of any faculty and staff, according to UO spokesperson Saul Hubbard.

The freeze only affects special requests, generally from department heads and managers, for future off-cycle pay increases for employees, Hubbard said. Off-cycle refers to any pay increase not set by the university’s collective bargaining agreements with faculty and staff or “prescribed by UO policies.”

Pay actions impacted by the freeze are stipends, overloads, retention increases, expansion of duties, work-out-of-class and special merit increases, according to the statement. It also applies to reclassifications in which “a represented employee performs work outside of their job classification due to allowable exclusions,” Hubbard said.

The freeze will also have no effect on future pay increases set by the university’s collective bargaining agreements — such as faculty tenure promotion increases and SEIU annual step or COLA increases —  or future pay increases governed by UO policy, like the Officers of the Administrations’ annual pay increase process, he said.

Compensation and benefits costs make up nearly 80 percent of the university’s budget, according to the statement.

 “This is a budget management measure intended to limit growth in our expenses as we assess and gain a better understanding of the significant impacts of the crisis on the university’s budget,” Hubbard said.

UO Human Resources is establishing an exemption process for which employees can submit requests, according to the statement. “University leadership will not be approving new off-cycle pay increases without applying additional review and only on a limited basis, if at all,” Hubbard said.

According to the statement, employees may be eligible for exceptions in the following cases: 

• Employees who are taking on substantially more work due to a vacancy, with such work generally being more difficult than normal.

• Individuals who, during the time that the freeze is in place, are appointed to roles that have historically been paid a stipend, such as department head stipends.

• “Critical retention issues” to be addressed in accordance with the Oregon Equal Pay Act.

• “Significant, permanent department restructuring” coupled with the assignment of significant and more difficult workloads in accordance with Oregon’s Equal Pay Act.

• Contractually obligated payments

• Other extenuating circumstances related to “a mission critical function” or the university successfully recovering from COVID-19 financially, Hubbard said.

In the case of the freeze, the exception of a mission critical function refers to university leadership at the academic and administrative levels evaluating individual pay increase requests. “Those evaluations will consider overall institutional needs, rather than individual unit/department circumstances,” Hubbard said.

The statement advised that anybody submitting a request “follow the current submission method for each pay action type” and include an Off-Cycle Pay Actions Justification form addressing the previously mentioned criteria. 

Human Resources’ Classification and Compensation Unit will initially review the request and pass it on to the Exception Committee, according to the statement. After “a triage group” led by the director of classification and compensation reviews the request, it will forward actions recommended for approval to the Exception Committee’s leadership, which includes Jamie Moffitt, Brad Shelton and Janet Woodruff-Borden. The Classification and Compensation Unit will then inform units of its decision regarding their requests, the statement said.

Once the freeze is lifted, Hubbard said, “the added layer of an exception review process will be removed and requests for off-cycle pay increases for employees would return to being managed by HR.”