The state Assembly Committee on Colleges and Universities reconvened Thursday to consider the bill to give legislators control over the salaries of top UW System officials.
The committee met Tuesday to discuss the issue and was unable to come to a decision.
An amendment to the bill allowing the Board of Regents to offer legislators a salary range for nine UW System administrative positions was proposed. Under this amendment, if the board wishes to offer a salary exceeding the range for a certain employee, they must submit a request to the Joint Committee on Employment Relations.
Currently, the Board of Regents has complete control over salary decisions for the university system. The board used this authority to issue a 43 percent, or $91,000, pay increase to UW system president Katharine Lyall.
Criticism of the bill is mainly due to Lyall’s large pay increase and the system the Regents used to determine it.
Rep. Greg Underheim, R-Oshkosh, explained to the committee how the board decided pay for its high-level executives.
“As it is done now, the university makes a list of all the salaries of its peer institutions and establishes a median and makes the pay range 10 percent on either side of that median,” Underheim said.
Committee chair Rep. Rob Kreibich, R-Eau Claire, criticized the prospect of the board having jurisdiction over public funds.
“Do we really want an unelected, obscure board making decisions with tax dollars?” he said. “I fear that the UW Board of Regents would use this same argument with tuition flexibility. In order to be more competitive, they could raise tuition to a midpoint. I fear that if we don’t rein them in, we give them the green light to raise tuition. Exorbitant raises are connected with exorbitant tuition; the public makes that connection even if we do not.”
Rep. Kitty Rhoades, R-Hudson, was reluctant to offer the board greater powers.
“
We gave [the UW board of Regents] some flexibility, and we didn’t like what we saw happen,” she said, “I very seriously want tuition impact to influence this decision.”
In response to criticism for raising Lyall’s salary, UW System vice president David Miller said the discrepancy between Lyall’s salary and those of other system presidents made the increase necessary if UW wants to remain competitive with other multi-campus schools.
Besides, Miller said, the salary increase was not significant when compared to the entire UW System budget.
“The salary increase we have made ends up being 1/1000 of one percent of the UW System’s budget,” Miller said.
In testimony at a hearing Tuesday, legislators questioned returning power to the Legislature.
“I think this is a dangerous precedent to say only legislators have the power,” Rep. Frank Boyle, D-Summit, said.
No action was taken on the amendment or the bill.
