Payroll costs are not main reason for UMass Boston’s budget woes - Boston Globe

As representatives of unionized faculty, staff, and graduate students at the University of Massachusetts Boston, we were dismayed to read Vice Chancellor Ellen O’Connor’s comments in the article “UMass Boston budget gap protested.” O’Connor blamed the school’s budget deficit on 4 percent increases to employee salaries. This is a faulty claim. For example, unionized staff received pay increases of less than 4 percent, and even if they were higher across the board, that would not have accounted for the $18.8 million spike in costs. https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/letters/2016/09/24/payroll-costs-are-not-main-reason-for-umass-boston-budget-woes/uMyJsIHrsfyi40WudHhKPP/story.html