At Ozarks Technical Community College, employee pay going up by 4 percent next year

Claudette Riley, Springfield News-Leader
·2 min read
Ozarks Technical Community College will raise all employee pay by 4 percent. The change starts July 1.
Ozarks Technical Community College will raise all employee pay by 4 percent. The change starts July 1.

Employee pay at Ozarks Technical Community College will go up by 4 percent this fall.

The change approved by the OTC Board of Trustees will full-time and part-time staff as well as adjunct instructors.

This is the largest annual salary increase since the 2007-08 year, when the board gave a 5 percent raise.

"This is a 4 percent increase for every full-time, part-time, adjunct — nobody will be left out," said OTC Chancellor Hal Higdon.

The increase means pay for full-time hourly workers will start at $14.04. The part-time hourly workers will start at $12.74.

In all, the 4 percent raise is expected to cost the college $2 million more a year in salary and benefits.

Starting July 1, starting pay for faculty with the following degrees will include:

  • $32,190 — Associate's degree or professional license

  • $33,738 — Bachelor's degree

  • $35,286 — Master's degree

  • $39,930 — Doctorate

The pay for adjunct instructors is per credit hour for lectures and labs and based on the years of experience. Here are the new rates:

  • First four years — $782 a credit hour for lecture, $527 a credit hour for lab

  • Years 5-9 — $881 a credit hour for lecture, $599 a credit hour for lab

  • 10 years or more — $1,061 per credit hour for lecture, $720 a credit hour for lab

The lab rates for seated courses are only paid to adjunct instructors grandfathered in as of August 2019. All others are paid on the credit hour at the lecture rate.

In March, the board approved higher tuition and fees, which remained flat this year.

Tuition for the overwhelming majority of courses will go up $5 a credit hour. A portion will go up $6 a credit hour.

The student fee, most recently approved in 2014, will go up by $1 per credit hour to $16.

The higher rates are expected to generate an additional $1.3 million in tuition and nearly $200,000 in fees during the next school year. The new rates start June 1.

Claudette Riley is the education reporter for the News-Leader. Email news tips to criley@news-leader.com.

This article originally appeared on Springfield News-Leader: At Ozarks Technical Community College, pay going up by 4 percent