University of Wisconsin System President Kevin Reilly will make public this week an Oct. 20 letter from UW-Madison Chancellor John Wiley presumably reporting on corrective measures to ensure appropriate sick-leave policies.

"We've got the letter [but] we haven't had a chance to look at it," UW System spokesperson Doug Bradley said, as he noted Reilly was out of the office both Thursday and Friday tending to other job commitments.

Wiley's letter arrived a day before the Oct. 21 deadline set by Reilly last month concurrent with the release of the Susan Steingass report, the result of the UW System's internal investigation into its personnel practices and policies.

Included in the Steingass report was documentation of sick leave used by former Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs Paul Barrows. Wiley, the report found, allowed Barrows to use such sick leave without a signed doctor's note.

"[Y]ou and your administrative team should have been aware of the requirement that an employee must be ill in order to charge an absence to sick leave, and should have acted promptly either to obtain the appropriate documentation on Dr. Barrows' situation, or to require his return to work," Reilly wrote. "The failure to do so has hurt the University's reputation."

In the same letter, Reilly also criticized the chancellor's delay in demoting Barrows to his backup position at a lower salary, despite the fact Barrows' job from which he took leave was eliminated from the school's roster.

"I also have concluded that, after Dr. Barrows had resigned from his position and the position had been abolished, you took an inordinate amount of time to place him in his backup appointment, continuing to pay him while on leave at his Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs salary of $191,749," Reilly wrote.

Barrows now earns $72,881 in his backup position as senior administrative program specialist in the Office of the Provost.

Whereas as of late Friday UW System officials had yet to review the letter, UW-Madison refused comment on the content of Wiley's report for the time being.

"[Reilly] wants assurances from John that the climate on the Madison campus is going to be 10 to two," Bradley said. "That things around sick leave, this broader notion of accountability at Madison, the environment at Madison [and] people's conduct at Madison [will be corrected]."