The majority of professors at University of Wisconsin System institutions continue to earn less than their colleagues at nearby technical colleges, according to a report released Tuesday.

According to the Legislative Audit Bureau, the disparity is not a fluke.

Last year, within the 13 districts that are home to four-year UW schools, average salaries for technical college professors were nearly $6,000 more than those for UW professors in each district.

However, as one of three exceptions to the general trend, UW-Madison faculty members make more than their counterparts at Madison Area Technical College.

"The faculty are a little different in the technical college system than the UW System," said James Zylstra, vice president of finance for the Wisconsin Technical College System. "They are unionized collectively, and they bargain with the administration of each college individually."

According to Zylstra, there are many other factors that determine a professor's salary at Wisconsin technical colleges, such as a professor's length of service and education level.

"The colleges are competing against professionals in the private sector, and it takes a certain level of salary to attract highly qualified people," Zylstra said.

The biggest difference, according to the report, was in Green Bay, where the average professor at Northeast Wisconsin Technical College earned $25,000 more than professors at UW-Green Bay in 2005.

The UW System has struggled with recruiting and retaining faculty, especially as a continuing disparity exists between UW professors' salaries and the salaries of professors at universities in other states.

"On a peer-to-peer basis, our faculties' salaries are consistently below those at other universities," said David Giroux, spokesperson for the UW System.

However, Giroux said the UW System attracts much of its faculty because of its excellent reputation.

"I think the UW name carries a lot of weight," Giroux said. "People want to work here because it's a good place, and that reputation is a national one and to some extent a global one. That helps to compensate a little."

Since last December, the UW System removed salary data of its employees from the Internet.

Having salary information readily available online, Giroux said, helped academic institutions whisk away UW System faculty members. Removing the information from the Internet, Giroux added, was part of the system's effort to damper other institutions' ability to do so.

However, Giroux said removing system salary information from the Internet had nothing to do with the report on technical college professors' salaries, adding, "The decision was decided months ago."

According to the audit released Tuesday from the Legislative Audit Bureau, the average salary for UW-Madison professors in 2005 was about $101,000, while Madison Area Technical College professors earned an average of about $75,000. This $26,000 difference is the greatest disparity between the 13 UW institutions and their surrounding technical colleges.

UW-La Crosse and UW-Superior are the only other UW institutions whose average professors' salaries outweigh those of the nearby technical colleges that year.