Check out last year's salaries for faculty and academic staff in the UW System

Visit the UW System on the Web

Regents Guide home page

Regents meeting background

Pay plan sets slightly lower increase than requested

The Department of Employment Relations cut 1 percent off the proposed 4.2 percent pay raise in the first year of the biennium plan for unclassified staff in the UW System.  

The unclassified staff will be given a 3.2 percent raise in the first year of the biennium, which began July 1, and 4.2 percent in the second year.

Though UW System officials wanted, and until recently expected, 4.2 percent raises in each year of the biennium, many were grateful for what was approved Wednesday.

"Actually I’m quite pleased," UW System President Katharine Lyall said. "When we made the 4.2 and 4.2 request almost a year ago now, the economy was a lot stronger."

The 3.2 percent for 2001-02 is retroactive to July 1 and checks reflecting the pay changes should be out by the end of the calendar year.  

Communication between the UW System and the Department of Employment Relations Secretary Peter Fox, who presented the recommendation Wednesday to the Joint Committee on Employment Relations, were more limited than usual leading up to the meeting.

Fox did not return calls made to his office Thursday and Friday.

The lack of communication was causing concern in the past month about the unclassified staff not receiving the 4.2 percent raises in each year of the biennium. Lyall and 15 UW chancellors, including Donald Mash, chancellor of UW-Eau Claire, sent a letter to Gov. Scott McCallum on Sept. 21, containing reasons why the unclassified staff should receive the recommended raises.

“Without the determined action of the Regents, President Lyall, the chancellors, and the faculty and academic staff on each of the campuses when it appeared that the pay plan was threatened, even the tuition-funded portion, I believe we would not have gotten what we got,” Mash said in an e-mail.

Lyall wasn't sure whether or not the letter was given much consideration, but said they sent it in the hopes of avoiding much lower pay increases.

"I think if we had known it was 3.2 and 4.2 (percent) earlier I don’t think we would have sent that letter," Lyall said. 

The UW Board of Regents approved a 4.2 percent pay raise for both years of the biennium in December.

Gerard Randall Jr., vice president of the Board of Regents, was pleased with the plan even though it is not what he and the other regents recommended.

“It wasn’t what we hoped we would be able to give to the faculty,” he said adding that schools in the UW System will be able to stay competitive with other universities from around the country.    

Garry Running, assistant professor of geography said he is "disappointed, not surprised," about the lower-than-expected pay raise. Running said he would like to be making as much as some of the professors in his field are. 

"I'm not going to whine about it because I can go somewhere else," he said.

UW-Eau Claire University Senate President Susan Harrison said she has heard mixed reactions from the unclassified staff.

“We have to be grateful for what we have,” she said adding that unclassified pay is still lower than she would like.

UW-Eau Claire Student Senate President Andy Oettinger was somewhat relieved with the plan that passed, but stressed how important future budgets will be when it comes to the pay plan.

"Real soon we’re going to get to the point where we’re going to start to lose quality faculty and I think already we have a problem recruiting quality faculty," Oettinger said.

Oettinger thinks students understand the importance of keeping faculty and have paid for it in the form of increased tuition.

"The state's not coming through really at all," he said. "The student support is there already. The state's not coming through, the Governor's not coming through -- it's disappointing."