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Negotiations have been progressing steadily this summer, and we are making good progress on the contract's non-economic provisions. In negotiations today, university management presented its initial proposal on two key economic issues: salary and healthcare.

University negotiators offered a three-year, tiered salary structure that offers greater salary increases to early-career faculty. The tiered salary structure supports our goals for recruiting and retaining the best and brightest tenure-track faculty, and provides the greatest salary increases to the lowest paid faculty at Kent State. This proposal helps us maximize our resources in an era of declining enrollment, Ohio's tuition freeze and capped State Share of Instruction (SSI) funding.

Over the course of the three-year contract, management proposed the following tiered structure for faculty raises:

Regarding healthcare, university negotiators proposed healthcare options provided to non-represented staff effective Jan. 1, 2019:

• The 85/60 plan, under which most preventive care is covered at 100 percent.
• The high-deductible healthcare plan, which has a lower premium contribution and a health savings account that is partially funded by the university.

Both plans provide robust, high-quality healthcare for our faculty and their families while enabling the university and its employees to mitigate the impact of rapidly inflating healthcare costs.

Concerning a third economic article, the university is proposing the continuation of the President's Faculty Excellence Award, which includes a monetary award in recognition of our most outstanding faculty.

The AAUP three-year contract with the university will expire Aug. 18, 2018. The next bargaining session is scheduled for Aug. 14. We will continue to negotiate in good faith, and we have every confidence the university will reach a fair and timely agreement with the AAUP.