Report to Faculty Senate on the addition of a Longevity Bump
Submitted by

The Promotion, Tenure and Salary Committee

April 24, 2008

 

 

Charge: Investigate and make recommendations for the addition of a "longevity bump" as a method to formally address salary compression issues.

 

There has been an impression that starting salaries are rising faster than pay raises.  To investigate this more thoroughly, we obtained data from Human Resources for all tenure track faculty on their year of hire, year of last promotion, starting salary and current salary.  Data was coded with Appt ID, so no individuals were identified.  Current salaries were plotted vs. year hired and promoted, and sorted by rank and college.  The slopes of the lines represent changes in salary per year, and were compared with changes in starting salary per year for each college.  The results are shown in Table 1, and the general trend is that starting salaries have increased faster than pay raises.  Starting salaries of newly hired assistant professors are projected to surpass those of recently promoted associate professors within approximately the next five years, and recently promoted full professors within approximately the next ten years (Table 2).  An across the board longevity bump would cost between $500,000 to $2,000,000 per year (Table 3).


Recommendation:

Because of this, the committee felt there was compelling evidence to support a longevity bump to Full and Associate Professors based on the year they were hired. We are fully aware that this could probably not be accomplished in a single year as the cost would be in the 1-2 million dollar range if it were applied in an "across the board" manner. Another option would be to gradually phase the bump in over a 3,5, or 7 year timeframe. The bump could be linked to departmental merit, promotion, positive post-tenure reviews or perhaps any combination within those three areas.  The committee further felt that any bump in salary should not come at the expense of any annual pay increase that might apply to the rest of the UW-L faculty in any given year.


 

 

 

Table 1.  Changes in salary per year

 

CBA

CLS

SAH

Starting Salary*

$2,063

n=20/33

$950

n=92/117

$1,138

n=84/115

 

 

 

 

Prof: Current Salary vs. year hired

-$477

$655

$560

Prof: Current Salary vs. year promoted

-$293

$1,057

$580

 

 

 

 

Assoc: Current Salary vs. year hired

$402

$584

$485

Assoc: Current Salary vs. year promoted

$175

$623

$514

 

 

 

 

Asst: Current Salary vs. year hired/promoted

$2,720

$35

$270

*Starting salary data was not available for all faculty.  (n=# faculty with starting salary data/# faculty in college)

 

 

 

Table 2.  Projected crossing dates.

 

CBA

CLS

SAH

Projected year where salary of newly hired assistant professor and newly promoted professor are equal

2017

2012

2016

Projected year where salary of newly hired assistant professor and newly promoted associate professor are equal

2006

2010

2011

 

 

Table 3.  Annual costs of an across the board longevity bump

 

CBA

CLS

SAH

UWL Total

Professors only, by year hired

$693,964

$239,632

$399,481

$1,333,077

Professors only, by year promoted

$327,484

0

$196,974

$524,468

 

 

 

 

 

Associates only, by year hired

$296,489

$191,758

$316,117

$804,364

Associates only, by year promoted

$232,224

$98,427

$170,352

$501,003

 

 

 

 

 

Prof and Assoc, by year hired

$990,453

$431,390

$715,598

$2,137,441

Prof and Assoc, by year promoted

$559,708

$51,561

$367,326

$1,025,471