By Debra O’Connor

Pioneer Press, St. Paul, Minn.

The tentative contract agreement between the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system — which includes Riverland Community College — and its university faculty union contains an overall salary increase of 7 percent over two years, according to documents from the union that negotiated the contract with MnSCU. And a new provision grants six weeks of paid parental leave on the birth or adoption of a child.

The negotiation process took nearly a year, with the deal reached July 29, so the first year of the contract, fiscal year 2014, already is complete; faculty would receive their pay raise for that year retroactively.

The lowest instructor pay would increase from $34,955 in fiscal year 2013 to $36,597 in the second year of the contract. The highest pay for professors would increase from $119,766 to $134,624 in the second year of the contract.

Next week, the Inter Faculty Association will present the contract to its membership, with voting beginning at the end of the first week of September and stretching into the following week.

If the membership approves the contract, the MnSCU board of trustees will consider it in mid-September, said union president Jim Grabowska. If approved by the board, it would next go to the Legislative Subcommittee on Employee Relations. If that group is in favor of approving the contract, it would go into effect immediately, perhaps as early as this fall, with the full Legislature considering it during the 2015 legislative session.

The IFA represents the faculty at all state universities and colleges; this was the last of four higher-education-related unions to come to a tentative contract agreement.

By request of the state mediator who helped them reach the accord, neither the union nor MnSCU commented on the details of the tentative contract agreement. It is available online at bit.ly/1mO92ca.