UW System Regents OK Salary Increase Request To Lawmakers

University of Wisconsin System leaders have approved asking legislators for an additional $78 million to bulk up employee raises over the next two years.

System leaders say they need to increase raises to keep pace with salary increases at peer institutions. A memo they sent to regents shows UW-Madison faculty salaries were 18 percent lower than peer faculty after adjustments for geographic costs of living.

“If we continue to increase that gap between what we pay our folks and what (out-of-state public institutions) pay there, it makes it even harder to catch up,” Ray Cross, UW System president, said at the Board of Regents meeting Thursday on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus.

Chancellors and system leaders would have discretion in who would receive raises and how large the raises would be. The money would come from the state’s compensation reserves, not tuition.

The Regents unanimously approved making the request to the state Legislature’s employment relations committee during the meeting.

The Regents also signed off on raising out-of-state and graduate tuition by hundreds of dollars at a number of campuses.

The plan calls for raising out-of-state undergraduate tuition and graduate tuition at UW-Eau Claire, UW-Green Bay, UW-La Crosse, UW-Madison, UW-Milwaukee, UW-Stout and as well as at all the system’s two-year institutions. The schools’ officials say they need the extra tuition dollars to bring nonresident rates more in line with peer institutions and retain faculty.

Board of Regents President Regina Millner said raising tuition for graduate schools also benefits the programs and Wisconsin overall.

“The monies are retained within those schools, and those schools are critically important to our (state), to producing professionals for our state,” Millner said.

The move comes as the system continues to grapple with a freeze on in-state undergraduate tuition that’s now in its fourth year. It marks the third round of out-of-state and graduate tuition increases at La Crosse, Milwaukee and Stout universities since 2015.

Not all the regents support a tuition increase for in-state graduate students, saying the increase is too much too fast.

And, for the first time since 1987, the regents’ approved revisions to their sexual violence and harassment policies that call for online training.

The changes include mandatory online training for every system student and employee as well as more in-depth training for supervisors and others involved in disciplinary matters.

Cross asked a task force in 2014 to come up with recommendations for revisions.

The policy also now unequivocally states that no instructor may start a relationship with his or her student and relationships between employees in which one has authority over the other are prohibited unless the employee with authority reports the relationship and takes steps to mitigate the potential conflict.

Editor’s Note: This story has been updated with original reporting from WPR.