While students sold baked goods for \poor chancellors"" outside Van Hise Hall Friday, the UW System Board of Regents formally recommended a 5 percent salary raise for UW personnel. Provided the state chooses to accept the salary increases for staff and denies funds to pay for them, the recommendation stands to increase UW student tuition 5.5 percent.
While the salary raise would not go into effect this year, it represents a 2 percent increase over the salary raise the Board of Regents requested this summer.
The board decided new salary ranges for the 13 chancellors will go into effect this year in the UW System. The increases brought the previous range of $164,686-$201,283 to $168,622- $206,093. As a result, seven UW System chancellors received raises.
Regent spokesperson Doug Bradley said the raises are necessary to keep the UW System competitive and stressed that the Board of Regents is mindful of how the formal requests and salary increases they pass affect the students.
""The pay raises for chancellors are not coming from tuition,"" he said.
Nevertheless, the requested 5 percent pay increase per year for UW staff has the potential to increase student tuition more than the 5 percent cap the United Council of UW Students demands.
""We need good people leading the universities, but students need to be able to afford to go to school,"" Council president Stephanie Hilton told the Capital Times.
Whereas the Regents' summer appeal for a 3 percent raise stood only to raise tuition by 4.3 percent, the current Regent recommendation ups possible increases to 5.5 percent.
However, Regent Beth Richlen, a second-year law student at UW-Madison, cautioned against jumping to the conclusion that the regents' recommendation automatically means a tuition hike.
""The 5 percent increase is just a recommendation to the State,"" Richlen said. ""[The Regents] know that the Joint Committee on Employee Relations won't grant five.""
Richlen added if the state completely denies the Regents' request, the Regents' decision would have no impact on student tuition.
