I taught first summer a.m. term and was surprised when I was finally
paid for my work that the money was roughly $400 less than I
expected.  I haven't taught summer school in three years.  Since that
time, the system has adopted a new accounting practice that accounts
for the loss of summer school income to faculty.

What they do now that they didn't do three years ago was lump
together the summer school pay with regular monthly income.  I have
TIAA disability insurance; the cost of that insurance compared to the
regular monthly cost roughly doubled--even though I am sure that if I
were to become disabled I would get no extra disability pay.
Otherwise, I might pay someone to maim me so that I could live off
the princely sum I would receive on disability income.  When I taught
summer school in 2,000, there was no payroll deduction for disability
insurance.

The deductions for withholding, FICA, and medicare were respectively
2.6, 2.15, and 2.14 times the regular monthly amounts.  What has
happened, of course, is that I have been moved temporarily into a
much higher tax bracket.  Granted, I will get back some of the
withholding money next year when I file my tax return (without any
interest on the money that the IRS has had in its hands all that
time).  But I won't get anything back on the higher FICA and medicare
payments.  Granted, also, I would have paid something into all three
tax categories no matter how I was compensated.  But not that much.

The solution that would help faculty with this problem would be to
return to past accounting practices.  From 1970 (when I came to UTC)
until the very recent past, summer school pay was always delivered in
a separate check apart from regular monthly income.  They still do
that with our longevity pay.  I don't see why they can't revert to
the earlier procedure when it comes to summer school pay.  It can't
cost all that much to cut the extra checks.  Summer school income has
always been a way for senior faculty to compensate for the abysmal
salary compression problem at UTC.  For the sake of faculty morale,
it would be good policy for senior administrators to keep that in
mind.

Mike Russell