To keep top employees, UW increases their pay

The university reallocated more than $900,000 last year for pay increases needed to fend off offers from other institutions and retain nearly 100 top faculty and staff.

See: Average faculty salares at UW–Madison and its peer group institutions Source: Office of Budget, Planning and Analysis

The pay raises for 99 university employees totaled $911,657, comprising the majority of 1998-99 salary adjustments made for competitive purposes in the UW System. Combined, seven UW System institutions spent $1,085,689 to retain 152 employees.

The salary adjustments demonstrate that the cost of retaining talented professors and academic staff members is a challenge at UW–Madison, says Carla Raatz, director of the Office of Human Resources.

“Market base adjustments are granted either when there is a specific outside offer, or there is evidence of a retention problem,” Raatz says. “They have to come from base budget funds. We do not get any additional funding from the state or from tuition to provide those increases.”

At UW–Madison, 60 faculty received pay raises for competitive purposes. Most had been offered positions at other universities or were recruited by other institutions or private firms. The other raises went to academic staff, administrators and coaches.

Salaries at the university continue to stay competitive for assistant professors compared to peer institutions, but drop slightly for associate professors and sharply for full professors, according to the Office of Budget, Planning and Analysis. (Salary comparison chart.)

Average starting pay for assistant professors in 1998-99 was $52,110, fifth out of 12 public research universities that make up the university’s official peer group. Associate professors ranked sixth at $58,695, while full professors ranked 10th at $77,623. Those rankings have stayed about the same over the past four years.

To reach the median of its peers for salaries, the state would have had to provide 9.4 percent pay raises last year, according to OBPA.

The salary adjustment data is included in a report the Board of Regents will review at its meeting Thursday and Friday, Sept. 9-10.

For the 1999-2001 state budget, the Board of Regents recommended, and Gov. Tommy Thompson supports, 5.2 percent pay raises for faculty and staff. But the Legislature has not yet passed the spending plan, and the Joint Commission on Employment Relations has not approved pay raises for the next two years.

Recruiting and retaining top faculty are top goals of Chancellor David Ward’s Madison Initiative public-private partnership, part of the pending state budget.