State approves pay raises

A legislative committee has approved a pay raise for faculty and academic staff that is slightly smaller than what the UW System Board of Regents requested earlier this year.

Peter Fox, secretary of the Department of Employment Relations, presented the pay plan to the Joint Committee on Employment Relations, Wednesday. The pay plan gives faculty and academic staff a 3.2 percent raise retroactive to July 1. The plan also phases in a 4.2 percent increase next fiscal year, with 2.1 percent starting July 1 and another 2.1 percent, Jan. 1, 2003.

JCOER passed the measure, 6-2. Faculty and academic staff will most likely see the pay increase on Dec. 1 paychecks. Retroactive pay should be paid as a lump sum Dec. 12.

Earlier this year, the Board of Regents asked DER to recommend a 4.2 percent pay increase for faculty and academic staff in each year of the two-year budget cycle, in hopes of bringing UW salaries closer to what faculty and academic staff make at other universities.

Though DER’s pay plan was less than what regents had requested, UW System President Katharine Lyall expressed her support to the committee.

“We are and we must continue to be an economic engine for the state. But our primary fuel is people,” Lyall says. “To carry out these programs, we need to recruit and retain the best faculty and staff. This compensation package will make that possible.”

Some members of JCOER worry most of the pay raise is funded by tuition instead of money from the state’s compensation reserve fund.

In the past, the compensation reserve fund picked up the cost for a large portion of faculty and academic staff pay raises. This year, UW System picked up the entire cost of the first year’s increase and all but 1 percent of the second year’s increase. However, system officials say the state’s smaller-than-usual investment in salary increases will not affect student tuition.

UW System officials also hope that the smaller state investment in faculty and academic staff will mean there is more money leftover to provide better raises for unionized classified staff, the only group of employees still without a pay plan.

“We have 8,000 represented classified employees in the UW System and they also deserve a fair and competitive salary package,” Lyall says. “They too are very important contributors to our university and to enriching our students’ university experience.”

The state has already finalized a 3 percent pay raise over the next two years for the state’s non-represented classified staff, including those at UW–Madison. Those employees saw 1 percent pay raise this year and will get another 2 percent in July 2002.