The State of Illinois minimum wage was increased on July 1 to $7.75 per hour. This is part of a three year plan to have minimum wage at a rate of $8.25 per hour by 2010. The increase affects many campus student workers on many different pay levels throughout the university. This will also affect budgets and hours in many of the different departments on campus.
Departmental budgets have not been changed to accommodate the minimum wage change on the higher level and are being left to each individual department to come up with a solution to accommodate the raise in pay for many student workers.
“Almost all the university departments have student workers,” said Ella Whitehead, Staff Clerk of the Student Employment Office. In a memo to fiscal Agents and Supervisors sent on July 2 Taushnia White, the Student Employment Coordinator said, “effective July 1, 2008, the minimum wage increased $.25 from $7.50 per hour to $7.75.” According to the U.S. Department of Labor website dol.gov, the State of Illinois has planed another increase of $.25 for July 1, 2009 and another for July 1, 2010. That will bring the minimum wage in Illinois up to $8.25 per hour.
In the memo White said, “Hiring departments should be mindful of the impact this change might have on their respective budget and adjust their student’s hours accordingly.”
Scott Simon, Coordinator of Student Computing Services, told the Independent of the things his department is doing to make up for the raise in pay for student workers. In order to continue staffing the labs with at least 80 percent of the available computer lab hours covered, the amount of total shifts available have been reduced, which means that the amount of workers have been reduced as well. “Fortunately for the NEIU community, the lab hours have remained the same as they have been for the past 15 years,” said Simon.
“We reduced our student worker staff by 30 percent from 50 to 35 over the past two years,” said Simon. There will be some interruptions in services as Simon had stated, We have removed all student support from the Science Building 2nd floor computer lab room 208 to accommodate the change and still remain within our student operating budget. The lab is still open, but if students need assistance, they will need to relocate to the B-Building or Classroom Building computer labs.
Simon does not believe this will be a large impact on students, “We have noticed that most of the NEIU users who utilize the computer labs are very knowledgeable and self-sufficient when it comes to technology and computers. Therefore, we have seen that the overall demand for general assistance has decreased concurrently with the decrease in the supply of available workers,” said Simon.
Fernando Aguilar, a second year student, started working as a student worker in Student Computing Services in Feb. 2008 before the increase in minimum wage took effect. He said, “This semester there seems to be more hours available, but other than that my pay checks still looks the same.”
Dave Green, Associate University Librarian for Collections and Information Services said, “[The library] assistant did an analysis of the actually budgets we spend on student workers between FY 2008 and FY2007 and the increase of the $1.00 in the minimum wage resulted in us having 1,875 fewer hours of student workers available. This is roughly equivalent to one full time employee, in terms of the number of hours.”
There have been no major staffing changes at the library to accommodate student workers as in Student Computing. However Green shared, “No budget cuts have been made due to the increase in student wages. However, the library has lost full time positions in the past two years which has impacted our ability to offer support to students for using our computers, specialized software and troubleshooting technical issues.”
The big issues that the library faces are not in terms of personnel but are in terms of stocking the shelves, Green explained, “This increase in the minimum wage does have an impact, but is much smaller than other budget pressures the library faces. For example, annual inflation on our journal subscriptions runs between 8-10 percent a year and last year cost us an additional $80,000.” Green continued, “Library budgets are under tremendous pressures these days, but personnel costs are not the main issue, journal subscriptions are.”
Even though the increased minimum wage will not affect the library services there is an expansion of services that is being looked into that might affect personnel. Green said, “We are going to try and extend our weekend hours next semester. We know that extended library hours are critical for students. We will probably significantly reduce staffing of the 2nd floor desk during the week in order to support longer weekend hours.
Taushoia White stated in the memo, “Northeastern Illinois University has four levels affected by the increase in the minimum wage.” White continued to say, “The second level will increase from $7.65 to $7.90; the third level will increase from $7.80 to $8.05; and the fourth level will increase from $7.95 to $8.20.”
In a press release put out by Governor Blagojevich’s office July 1, 2008, it stated Gov. Blagojevich signed legislation in Dec. 2006 boosting Illinois’ minimum wage to $7.50 an hour with an additional 25 cents in each of the following three years to $7.75 on July 1, 2008; $8.00 on July 1, 2009; and $8.25 on July 1, 2010. The press release also stated, “Research has shown that a higher minimum wage contributes to more jobs and a stronger economy.”