Public record · CBA Article 7 and NSHE Procedures and Guidelines Manual Chapter 3
The rules that set a CSN faculty salary, in one place.
Two published documents decide where a full-time academic faculty member starts: the NSHE community college salary schedule, whose five grades follow academic preparation, and the CSN-NFA placement table, which converts education and credited experience into a starting salary. The equity study measures each member against these rules.
Public record
CBA initial placement table: education column by credited years at hire
CSN-NFA CBA 2022-2025, Article 7, Section 3.A, as published. Each credited year (rows 0 to 10) adds 2.5% to the column entry salary; no more than ten years of related experience is credited. The second view applies the FY24 12% and FY25 11% COLAs that the CBA says the table incorporates. That view is our arithmetic, shown for scale; CSN Human Resources' current table governs.
NSHE academic salary schedule, community colleges: FY26 and FY27
Minimum to maximum for each grade, with the median marked. The FY27 schedule (effective July 1, 2026, amended January 2026) raised the grade 1 and grade 2 minimums sharply: grade 1 from $42,732 to $51,400, grade 2 from $47,005 to $52,900.
NSHE Chapter 3, Section 3.3 lists the ways a community college faculty salary changes: professional advancement from grade to grade, cost-of-living adjustments, merit awards, salary equity adjustments, a minimum 2.5% increase at tenure, and promotional or benchmark advancement. CSN's MFA rule lets tenured MFA holders on column 4 apply to move to column 5 after five years of post-tenure service. Every one of these events is a place where two faculty members with the same education and experience can drift apart, and each becomes a field in the study's data request.
A first check the study runs: does every placement cell clear the system minimum?
Row 0 of each column in the current-dollar illustration, against the FY27 NSHE minimum for the matching grade. A cell below the minimum would mean the table, or salaries set from it, needs a floor. This depends on our COLA arithmetic, so the study runs it on CSN's actual current table in week one.