UW-Madison to offer limited salary increases to address compensation gap

The University of Wisconsin–Madison will offer targeted salary increases for critical faculty and staff to address the growing gap in compensation between faculty and staff at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and their peers at other institutions.

The plan — called the Critical Compensation Fund — will not involve across-the-board increases. It will instead involve targeted pay adjustments aimed at recognizing equity, retention, market influences and, for classified staff, exceptional performance.

The fund was created by an overcut of base budget allocations to generate a pool of funds to distribute to all eligible employee groups.
The administration is urging deans and directors to also consider evidence of significant educational innovation. Although performance cannot be a basis for an increase under state law for faculty and academic staff (the new personnel system the university is designing will likely change that), exceptional performance is necessary in addition to market or equity concerns.

Interim Chancellor David Ward has championed the issue of recognizing and retaining high-performing employees since returning to campus last summer. Over the past decade, salaries of UW–Madison faculty have fallen behind the median average at peer institutions by about 1 percent a year, according to the 2011-12 annual report of the campus Commission on Faculty Compensation and Economic Benefits.

“This fund is absolutely necessary to preserve UW–Madison’s ability to fulfill its mission and retain its position as one of the world’s leading research institutions,” Ward says. “We understand the state’s serious fiscal situation, but offering limited, targeted increases will allow us to recognize and retain those employees whose work is most critical to the university.”

Deans and directors of schools and colleges will have authority for approving the salary adjustments. For classified staff, adjustments also require approval from the Office of State Employment Relations.

Administrators will consider a series of indicators relevant to individual employee categories and circumstances.

It is anticipated that no more than 30 percent of eligible employees within a school, college or division may receive increases.

“The Critical Compensation Fund reflects the kind of creative, innovative thinking we need to use to show how we can be more responsible for our own resources and personnel,” says Vice Chancellor for Administration Darrell Bazzell.

The salary adjustments would be effective as early as July 1 for those on 12-month appointments and Aug. 27 for those on 9-month appointments.