Budget Impasse: State Plan Funds 4 Percent Pay Raises for Faculty and Academic Staff

Faculty and academic staff would receive pay raises of 4 percent and 4.5 percent during the next two years, and classified staff would receive raises of 3 percent and 3.5 percent, under proposed state pay plans.

The Department of Employment Relations’ suggested salary increases for faculty and academic staff are slightly higher than those recommended by the UW System Board of Regents.

“We’re thankful to the governor, the Legislature and the regents for coming up with the best pay plan we’ve seen in the last few years,” says Jack O’Meara, lobbyist for the Public Representation Organization of the Faculty Senate, or PROFS. “Nevertheless, these pay raises will help us just hold our own instead of meeting the median of our peer institutions. At best we will be treading water.”

The regents sought 4 percent raises in each of the next two years, although UW System President Katharine Lyall and Chancellor David Ward proposed 5.1 percent raises. Lyall and Ward said raises similar to the 1 percent and 2 percent raises in the 1995-97 biennium would continue to hurt UW–Madison’s ability to recruit and retain talented faculty and staff.

O’Meara says UW–Madison faculty would need 8.2 percent raises in each of the next two years to reach the median salary level of the university’s peer institutions. With more than 100 faculty retiring this past year and others leaving because of better offers from other schools, the need for competitive salaries is critical, O’Meara says.

“We need to keep thinking about how to compete in the marketplace,” he says.

DER’s recommendations will be considered today (Aug. 27) by the Joint Committee on Employment Relations, which is expected to take action on these and other pay plans for state employees. The committee will forward its recommendations to the Legislature for inclusion in the 1997-99 state budget.

The Legislature has not yet approved its version of the biennial budget, and two of the three budget proposals currently being considered by lawmakers do not fully fund the proposed pay plans.

“It’s our assumption that the funding of the pay plans will be similar to what’s been recommended by the governor and the Legislature so far,” says John Torphy, vice chancellor for administration. “It will likely be some combination of state tax funds, tuition increases and reallocations.”

Because classified pay raises are mandatory, the proposal could force UW–Madison to absorb the equivalent of up to a $4 million cut in the university’s budget to fund them, Torphy says.

“Unless the Legislature allocates additional significant funds for all state agencies, we’ll have to make up that cost,” he says.