The University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents will decide whether to grant pay raises to four UW System chancellors Friday.
According to the proposal, both UW-Milwaukee Chancellor Carlos Santiago and UW Colleges and UW Extension Chancellor David Wilson would receive a 4.99 percent increase.
UW-Stevens Point Chancellor Linda Bunnell’s salary would increase 3.76 percent, and UW-Eau Claire Chancellor Brian Levin-Stankevich would see a salary increase of 3.45 percent.
If the proposal is approved, the money to grant salary increases would come from within the UW System’s budgets, according to UW System spokesperson David Giroux.
“We’re talking about salary adjustment under existing resources. We’re not talking about taking money from one pot to fill another one,” Giroux said. “I don’t think there’s an issue of where the money will come from.”
According to Giroux, chancellors are chosen to receive pay raises on a rotating basis as part of an annual review process.
“It really is a pretty routine process,” Giroux added. “The only difference between chancellors and other UW employees is that salary proposals have to be done at a full board level.”
According to Regent Vice President Chuck Pruitt, the review of chancellors’ salaries occurs annually, and the decision to grant a salary increase is dependent upon national market conditions.
“That’s what these adjustments are based on, whether salaries are appropriate in the context of greater market conditions. Chancellors are in a national market, and we need to be competitive in Wisconsin,” Pruitt said.
According to Giroux, the UW System must pay salaries that are competitive with other universities. He said Wisconsin has historically been a state that offers solid benefits and modest salaries.
“The question is, how modest is too modest?” Giroux said. “We’ll never be at the top of the range, but we can only be so far below before it has an effect on recruitment and retention.”
According to Giroux, UW-Eau Claire Chancellor Levin-Stankevich, who could receive $5,000 more than he is currently earning annually, would still be 10 percent below the midpoint of his peers’ universities and 21 percent below universities with similar budgets nationwide.
“We are recruiting talent from a national pool,” Giroux said. “The best and brightest are often courted from all over the world, and we would like them to come here. And once they are here we would like to keep them.”
