Purdue budget, retirement plan approved

WESTVILLE, Ind. (WLFI) - Purdue University employees have a new retirement plan after the first of the year. Trustees approved the new plan and the university's operating budget Friday at the North Central campus in Westville..

Beginning January 1st 2011, Purdue employees who are part of the retirement plan TIAA-CREF, will see some changes.

Vice President of business and finance, Al Diaz, said the debate over the plan was important.

"An academic institution is a place where people in the community have an opportunity and a responsibility, frankly, to voice their opinions. We've got a lot of terrific input that allowed us to end up in what I think is the right place," said Diaz.

The new plan would reduce the university's contribution to 10 percent and require employees to contribute four percent of their salaries to their retirement plan. Affected employees would then see a salary hike to keep their pay competitive.

"What it really does, is it puts us in a position where we're more sustainable at the salaries of our peers and that's been really important," said Diaz.

The plan is a result of a study done by Hewitt Associates that compared data from Purdue to other institutions. The findings were Purdue's total compensation is on average market competitive across all employees.

"I think we had some sense at the same time that we had reached a point of consensus that this was a good plan and as a consequence there really is no reason to delay. This will give us some extra time to prepare for the implementation of this kind of a program," said Diaz.

The board also approved the university's operating budget for all campuses.

At West Lafayette, a 3.9% spending increase, no salary increases and a budget of roughly $907 million was approved.