With increasing numbers of faculty leaving the University of Wisconsin System for higher wages and more benefits elsewhere, system administrators are looking for ways to retain employees.

In the final stages of the University of Wisconsin System’s budget request process, the UW Board of Regents proposed a 5.23 percent faculty wage increase for faculty and unclassified staff at its Dec. 7 and 8 meeting.

If approved by the state, the increase would be for each year of the 2007-’09 budget biennium.

According to Regent Charles Pruitt, chair of the Business, Finance and Audit Committee, faculty in the UW System are “eight percent below peer groups” when compared with faculty in other states.

Secretary of UWM Randall Ryder has worked on the faculty salary issue as a member of the UW System Compensation Advisory Committee. When looking at the salary data for comparable universities around the country, he said they found UW faculty’s salaries about $8,000 to $9,000 less than their peers.

“Over a long term that is quite a bit of money,” Ryder said.

Ryder said faculty members do not have any built-in raises, as employees at many companies do. Instead they must rely on the regents’ annual budget request to the state for increased wages.

Between higher wages elsewhere, better support from graduate students, more lab space and better equipment at other institutions, Ryder said, “Nationally the UW System is known as a place other institutions can lure away [faculty] at higher salaries.”

Ryder said in many cases the professors are literally contacted about positions elsewhere without applying for them.

But art history professor Andrea Stone said there are many times when faculty will inquire at other universities in an attempt to get a higher “outside offer.”

“(The) dean can either match it or the person will leave,” Stone said.

Stone said in the 20 years she has been at UWM, the art history department has not lost any faculty but she knows of other departments that have.

“We have a lot of pluses of being here,” said Stone, who enjoys the gallery inside the department. “Salary is not one of the pluses.”

To support the increases, the regents are asking for additional state revenue.

“We’ve made a lot of cuts,” Pruitt said. “We don’t feel we have any more cuts to make.”

According to the regent’s Dec. 7 news summary, the regents will request the state to fund the wage increases through general revenue funding from the state rather than through increased tuition. In the past years the raises have been funded partially by tuition increases and general revenue.

But the increases will come in after other already submitted requests.

Earlier in August the board submitted its budget request to the state that asked for more financial aid and money for the growth agenda that includes the chancellor’s research and growth plan, Pruitt said.

From there the proposal will be sent to the governor to be considered in his next budget, which is planned to come out early in 2007. Then the legislature will debate it until decisions are made and submitted back to the governor for final approval.

In spring or summer the final budget will come out, which will help determine fall 2007 wages for faculty and tuition for students.

> Comments