The 2007-2008 PTS Committee had four charges beyond the standing charges of:

1.     Studying and recommending policies and procedures used in the university concerning salary, promotion and tenure.

2.     Collecting and disseminating information on procedures employed

They were:

1.     Investigate the previous uses of "Star Fund" monies, and make recommendations for future uses. 

When we compared the distributions for FY08 and FY09, most notable was the 6.3% awarded to CLS (the largest college within the university) in comparison to CBA and SAH .

It was the feeling of the committee that the new guidelines* set forth for the High Demand Faculty Retention Fund and the Dean of CLS requesting more of this fund seems to have resulted in a leveling of the playing field for all colleges for FY09.

At a meeting of the PTS Committee on February 29, the committee approved the following recommendation:

PTS Recommendation To Faculty Senate:

The committee felt that re-visiting the guidelines and distribution would be a prudent standing charge for future PTS committees as this is merely one year to compare.  It may be interesting to note that both the Dean of CLS and the Provost are different this year and may have also had some bearing on the change in distribution.

*3. The addition of "mission critical" to the guidelines.

2.              Investigate and report on college procedures for compensating department chairs.  What follows is the result of an e-mailed survey to the respective Deans of the colleges including Bruce May (College of Business), Karen McLean (College of Sciences and Allied Health) and Ruthann Benson (College of Liberal Studies.

Remuneration Policy

• Cutting across all the colleges in the common practice of paying all department chairs $200 per month for a total of $1800 per academic year.  Release time is based on the number of faculty in each department. (See Faculty Senate By-Laws VI: Remuneration of Department Chairpersons. Section A, Salary Adjustment for Chairpersons and Section B, Reduction of Load).
• In addition to this academic year payment, each college offers a second payment covering summer appointment of the department chair.  A recent policy statement on UWL’s policy regarding the remuneration of department chairs provided by Associate Dean Charles Martin-Stanley states that “summer appointments are at the discretion of the college Deans.”  Note the following college policies on summer appointment remuneration:
•  

SAH policy for summer chair appointments is 40% of two months salary for completion of chair duties for those chairing departments with more than ten members and 33% of two months salary for those chairing departments of ten or fewer members.

CB pays summer stipends in the amount of $4000 per summer “as long as funds are available.”

CLS pays summer stipend of one month of academic year salary for those chairing at 50% appointment.  Thus, those chairs serving at 25% appointment would be paid on half of a months academic year salary.

PTS Recommendation To Faculty Senate:

At a meeting of the PTS Committee on October 11^th, the Committee approved the following recommendations.

• Retain the Deans’ flexibility in determining the percentage release time from teaching for department chairs.  This recommendation recognizes the fact that circumstances in various departments change over time including, among others, the challenges wrought by hiring new faculty and responsibilities in periodic accreditation processes.

• Propose an increase in the academic year remuneration from $200 to $300 per month thus raising the grand total from $1800 to $2700. This recommendation is made with the observation that seven years has passed since the Faculty Senate’s original recommendation for the academic year remuneration for department chairs came into being.  This recommendation is forwarded with the realization that faculty salaries have remained stagnant in recent years.  Nevertheless, the Committee believes that department chairs deserve a higher academic year remuneration after receiving $1800 over the last seven years.

• On 1/11/08 Chancellor Gow approved the proposal with one addition. 

Compensation should be reviewed every two years with the biennial budget.

3. 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 five years, and recently promoted full professors within ten years.  An across the board longevity bump would cost between $500,000 to $2,000,000 per year.

PTS Recommendation To Faculty Senate:

The PTS committee felt there was compelling evidence to support a longevity bump to Full and Associate Professors based on the year they hired. We are fully aware that this would 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.

3.     Make recommendations about pay plan uses in the second year of the biennium.  Address both the Chancellor’s discretionary 10% and the merit/solid performance split.

Right now the pay plan is 3% for Fy09.  However, what is confusing is that due to the shortfall in state revenues, the annual pay plan is split, with 2% coming on July 1, 2008 and 1% coming on April 12, 2009. 

Any pay plan at UW-L will be distributed not less than 1/3 Merit/Market, not less than 1/3 Solid Performance and the last 1/3 can be used for Merit/Market, Solid Performance or other compensation needs. It has been the practice for UW-L to distribute the pay plan 2/3 for Solid Performance and 1/3 for Merit/Market. The Chancellor can use up to 10% of the pay plan to address compression and/or other compensation needs.  The problem is that with such historically minimal increases, any % the Chancellor would elect to take off the top of the pay plan would essentially be "robbing Peter to pay Paul".  The committee felt that in such difficult financial times one would be hard-pressed to make an argument to implement the use of any of the Chancellor’s Discretionary 10%.

PTS Recommendation To Faculty Senate:

Until pay increases equal or exceed the cost of living increases or some similar measure, the money we’re talking about is a relatively small amount and the Chancellor should not exercise his/her option to use the Discretionary 10%.  The pay plan should continue to be used for Merit/Market and Solid Performance - a departmental decision.  The PTS Committee should revisit this charge periodically.

Respectfully submitted,

Joe Anderson

Promotion, Tenure and Salary Chair