I'm currently fighting this. The benchmark for my team is 10-15% lower than just our area. And 30-40% lower than the nation. And it's because we get lumped in with lower skilled titles because of the title scheme on our campus.

I can't get any traction with admin or HR, and we're both hemorrhaging people and can't bring in qualified new candidates.

It's very frustrating.

I just went through this last week and the trick was getting my finance director to tell HR that she approved the higher amount I wanted to offer. HR will play games with your budget until you take the excuse away.

The problem is the Dean for that area (is a college by the way) is a cowardly little chicken shit bitch who will not rock the boat for any reason.

We have history if you couldn't tell.

My company just googles the position title and slaps that number in the job description. Not going well.