Regents approved the proposed pay plan of 4.04% to be phased in on July 1, 2018 and Jan. 1, 2019. There was a requirement that a portion of the plan be merit-based. The 4.04% constitutes an aggregate total for UWM; thus, salary increases for individual employees will vary based on merit. Schools, colleges and divisions will issue pay plan letters this month to eligible faculty and staff. UWM will fund about a third of the pay plan cost while the state compensation fund provides the remainder. For more details, please see Human Resources’ 2017-19 Pay Plan FAQ web page. 

In addition to the state pay plan, we allocated up to $1.5M in base funds for faculty salaries via a new Chancellor’s Faculty Compensation Fund to help address salary compression and to retain faculty who contribute to strategic priorities. This amount is equivalent to about 2.3% of all faculty salaries; click here for details on how schools and colleges will administer these funds.

We dedicated an additional $375,000 in base funds for graduate teaching assistant and program assistant salaries to support our exceptional research strategic initiative. This funding is in addition to $692,000 in base funds allocated in FY17. These increases help us attract and retain excellent graduate students.

Work continues to consolidate UW-Waukesha and UW-Washington County with UWM on July 1, 2018, pending the decision on accreditation from the Higher Learning Commission (HLC) expected later this month.

In the meantime, the BOR approved establishment of the UWM College of General Studies (CGS) as home for the two-year campus academic programs. The faculty, curriculum and related academic programming needed to support CGS are currently in place at the Waukesha and Washington County campuses, which are being led by Interim Dean Stephen Schmid.

Planning for the restructured UWM is advancing with 160 faculty and staff from the three campuses addressing operational details for accreditation, academic programs, budget, enrollment, human resources, IT, marketing, student information systems, student services and more. For updates, including new FAQs, please see the UWM and UW Colleges Restructuring web site.

ISS Launch 

This month marks the launch of the first hub for the Integrated Support Services (ISS) project, an effort to design and implement an administrative structure for finance and accounting, procurement, human resources and IT services.This first hub will provide services to the School of Education, the College of Health Sciences, the College of Nursing, the Zilber School of Public Health, the Helen Bader School of Social Welfare and the Division of Finance and Administrative Affairs. The College of Letters and Science and the Division of Student Affairs also will receive IT services from the prototype hub. The project aims for long-term service efficiencies, increased effectiveness, improved use of technology and enhanced professional development opportunities for staff in these administrative areas. This is a significant accomplishment and I thank everyone who has been involved in this important initiative.

Budget Planning for 2018-19

I will continue to provide updates as developments occur. Thank you for all you do every day to contribute to UWM’s significant impact on our students, region, state and beyond.