Tag: faculty salaries

Former PROFS President Judith Burstyn on News 3 Now

by Michelle Felber • June 20, 2019 • Comments Off

Former PROFS President Judith Burstyn appeared yesterday on News 3 Now (embedded below).

Burstyn told reporter Rose Schmidt that faculty salaries at UW-Madison lag behind peers and while the current state budget proposal includes two 2 percent pay increases for faculty and staff, the university must reallocate funds from elsewhere on campus to pay for $16 million of the pay raises if tuition remains frozen and the state does not provide inflationary funding.

Newly-elected UW System Board of Regents President Drew Petersen also appeared on the newscast. Petersen told Schmidt that requiring Joint Finance Committee approval for $45 million in state funding to UW System was “a little bit heavy-handed” but he was pleased with the committee’s $1.1 billion allocation for UW System’s capital budget.

PROFS Encourages JCOER to Approve UW-Madison Pay Plan

by Michelle Felber • January 25, 2018 • Comments Off

PROFS President Dorothy Farrar Edwards and Chair Anja Wanner sent a letter yesterday to State Representative Robin Vos (R-Rochester) and State Senator Roger Roth (R-Appleton), co-chairs of the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Employment Relations (JCOER), encouraging them to schedule a meeting to approve UW-Madison’s proposed faculty and staff pay plan.

Last week, UW-Madison announced a 4 percent pay plan for faculty staff to be given in two installments — 2 percent in July 2018 and 2 percent in January 2019 — but the funding for the plan must first be approved by JCOER.

Taking too long?

Reload document

Open in new tab

Download

Chancellor Blank to Board of Regents: These Cuts are Too Large

by Michelle Felber • February 6, 2015 • Comments Off

University of Wisconsin-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank addressed the UW System Board of Regents yesterday, first touting the accomplishments of the university, but ultimately sharing her fear that proposed budget cuts could seriously harm the institution.

UW-Madison faces a $91 million budget shortfall in the coming fiscal year:

$23 million continuing cut from 2013
$57 million proposed cut (UW-Madison’s historic share of UW System total)
$3.5 million loss due to elimination of state funding for the Wisconsin Bioenergy Initiative
$2.5 million loss due to the elimination of municipal service payments by the state
$5 million set aside for faculty retention

The chancellor likened the cut to 650 faculty positions or 1,083 staff positions. That amount would also fund five of the university’s smaller colleges — Business, Law, Nursing, Pharmacy, and Veterinary Medicine.

Blank told regents that raising tuition at the professional schools and out-of-state students could bring in $18.5 million per year. Raising the cap on out-of-state students from 27.5 percent to 30 percent would add almost $19 million a year. Even with these additional revenue streams, less than half of the anticipated funding gap would be filled, resulting in major cuts to faculty and staff as well as student support services.

Blank is especially concerned that faculty at UW-Madison will be an easy target for recruitment by other top universities. Faculty salaries lag behind peers, and the median salary offer by a competitor last year was 42% higher than the UW-Madison salary. The chancellor told the regents the current budget situation has caused the university to lose three potential hires in the past week, including one nationally known researcher.

Blank closed her remarks with the following:

“Never has higher education been more important to the young people around the state. These cuts are too large. They are too large for the state. They are too large for the university.”

Taking too long?

Reload document

Open in new tab

Download [6.83 MB]

Chancellor Blank Offers Budget Transparency

by Michelle Felber • November 10, 2014 • Comments Off

Chancellor Rebecca Blank recently sat down with Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter Karen Herzog to discuss the university’s budget and how it relates to the upcoming 2015-17 state biennial budget process.

The chancellor told Herzog that she has worked to make UW-Madison’s budget more transparent to lawmakers, work that culminated in the publication of the 2014-15 Budget in Brief (embedded below).

Blank also shared how the campus has drawn down its reserves as a result of the 2013 controversy over UW System’s financial reserves, and deans and directors have been asked to model budget cuts of 2, 4, and 6 percent in anticipation of possible budget cuts from the state.

Blank also made the case for better faculty salaries, stating the university must compete globally for the best faculty. Faculty salaries are currently at the bottom of the university’s peer group — full professors earn almost 13 percent below the peer median.

The full article is expected to run in the November 11 edition of the Journal Sentinel. ETA: The article ran in the November 12 edition of the paper.

2014-15 Budget in Brief

Chancellor Blank Calls for Increased Faculty Pay

by Michelle Felber • October 22, 2013 • Comments Off

Chancellor Rebecca Blank appeared on WKOW’s Capitol City Sunday where she made the case for better faculty and staff salaries. Blank told reporter Greg Neumann that while faculty pay is higher than the pay of the average Wisconsin resident, she…

PolitiFact on UW System Faculty Salaries

by Michelle Felber • December 30, 2012 • Comments Off

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and PolitiFact Wisconsin recently examined a statement by University of Wisconsin System President Kevin Reilly asserting that “faculty salaries at UW System institutions have now fallen more than 18 percent below the national average.” Reilly made…

The Importance of Competitive Compensation

by Jack O'Meara • May 1, 2012 • Comments Off

At its core, a great university is successful because of people. Educators who inspire and challenge their students. Researchers doing cutting-edge projects that attract outside funding and drive our state’s economy. Academics committed to improving the lives of the people…