All University faculty soon will receive a salary increase, and the lowest-paid employees will see $1,000 raises, according to an internal University memorandum.

Provost Arnett Mace and Senior Vice President for Finance and Administration Tim Burgess announced the change Friday in a memo to all faculty and staff and forwarded it to The Red & Black.

“While this additional allocation will enable UGA to enhance the salary pool for all faculty ranks, a particular emphasis will be placed on the associate professor level,” Mace and Burgess wrote.

Declining competitiveness of associate professor salaries has been an issue, they said.

Salary increases will include a state-funded 2.5 percent merit-based salary pool effective Jan. 1, 2009. This increase will only be given to certain employees who meet the University’s set criteria.

The University also will fund a 0.5 percent increase for all faculty and staff, the memo reads.

The minimum hiring rate for employees will be increased from $20,000 to $21,000.

Other lower-paid employees also will receive increases “to mitigate the salary compression … associated with raising the minimum hiring rate,” the memo reads.

Mace and Burgess said Governor Sonny Perdue, the Georgia General Assembly and the Board of Regents approved the 2.5 percent merit-based salary raise.

The regents provided an additional $1.8 million annually to the University to make the school’s salary offerings more competitive with comparable research universities.

The administration committed $2.7 million in institutional funds to the University-wide 0.5 percent raise and increase in the minimum hiring rate, the memo reads.

“While we wish that more could have been done at this time, we are grateful for the good stewardship of resources by those across the institution that will enable us to target funds in this manner,” Mace and Burgess wrote.