The University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents will vote Thursday whether to seek state funds for faculty, staff and executive pay increases of 5 percent over each of the next two years.

The possible pay increases have led the regents to revise their proposed tuition increase from 4.3 percent for each year of the biennium to 5.5 percent per year, the Capital Times has reported.

The United Council of UW Students has said it will oppose the tuition increase.

But Board of Regents Vice President David Walsh said there is “absolutely no tuition increase” under discussion.

“We have to suggest what it will take to retain and recruit faculty,” he said. “The state statute requires we give the legislature and government what it will take to recruit and retain faculty.”

Walsh noted there is “great irony” in the Board of Regents, since he thinks most people do not pay attention to the processes behind the board’s decisions.

“If the legislature approves of providing a fund to give an average increase to the faculty of, say, 4 percent — where does that money come from?” Walsh said. “We would like it to come from the state.”

Nino Amato, a former member of the Board of Regents and president of the Wisconsin Industrial Energy Group, said while he is not surprised by the question of raising salaries, he finds it an unfortunate prospect.

“When you’re in the middle of a fiscal crisis, the last thing you do is raise executive salaries,” he said. “It’s irresponsible at this point.”

Amato added the UW System is currently looking at a tremendous budget shortfall. The possibility of raising tuition further, he said, would bring the total tuition increase over the last few years to 43 percent.

“Students have been facing double-digit increases every year for the last couple years,” Amato said. “I believe in competitive salaries, but there is a time and a place for them. Now is not the time.”

He said when the university’s economic situation has stabilized in the future, the board might consider salary increases.

Walsh maintains the board’s goal is not to raise tuition.

“It’s very frustrating,” Walsh said. “We don’t even know what the state is going to give us. There is a proposal by one regent to raise the salaries of chancellors who are being paid less than what the statute requires. I think that will pass. The rest I cannot comment on.”