UW regents approve 2% pay raises for chancellors

MADISON — The University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents has approved 2% raises for all 13 system chancellors.

The Wisconsin State Journal reported the regents signed off on the raises during a closed-door meeting Thursday afternoon.

The raises range from $4,488 to $11,652. UW-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank got the biggest raise. She saw her salary grow from $582,617 to $594,269. UW-Milwaukee's Mark Mone got the second-highest raise, moving his salary from $396,219 to $404,143.

The raises come a year after 10 of the chancellors shared more than $270,00 in performance raises. Most of that money was freed up after UW Colleges and UW-Extension Chancellor Cathy Sandeen's position was eliminated as part of a restructuring move that merged the 13 two-year campuses with some of the system's four-year institutions.

Those raises ranged from $14,421 to $72,668, or 6% to 14.21% of the chancellor's salaries.

The regents refused to give UW-La Crosse Chancellor Joe Gow a raise last year as punishment for inviting an adult film actress to speak on campus as part of a free speech week. Gow got a raise Thursday but it was the smallest any of the chancellors received, moving his pay from $224,400 to $228,888. He remains the lowest-paid permanent chancellor despite running the seventh-largest campus.

The Legislature's budget-writing committee has approved a state worker pay plan that would give all UW System employees a 2% raise in January and another one in 2021. That plan is still subject to approval by the Legislature's employment relations committee. Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, who leads that committee, is trying to set a meeting on the pay plan for later in December.

Several hundred tradespeople who maintain the campuses are still waiting on a 2% raise that was supposed to take effect this past January. The employment relations committee has yet to sign off on them as well.

The chancellors' raises aren't subject to legislative approval.