May 12, 2011

HR Reps,

During these busy and crazy times, it feels good to let you all know that at the last Board of Regents meeting, the Board approved an amendment to Regent Policies 20-18 and 20-8 that allows the UW Chancellors, and thus APO, the authority to approve the following.This amendment becameeffective immediately.

  • Approval of limited appointments
  • Approval of Director, Unspecified titles
  • Approval of Administrative Officer titles
  • Approval of Special Assistant titles

In other words, UW System Administration no longer needs to approve UW Madison’s limited and above-mentioned title requests. Having said that, at this time there is no change in the way you handle these requests. You need to continue to send the PQs for the Director, Unspecified title to APO. We will keep you informed if any changes are made ‘process wise’ for the above listed items.

FUTURE DELEGATIONS

UW System is in the process of delegating the authority to chancellors to approve a number of other actions. The only one of real value to us, I think, is delegation of authority to approve ExtraordinarySalaryRanges. The rest have little impact on us because of how infrequently we use them. Here are the relevant proposed delegations and the date they are expected to be approved

Recommend taking the following to the Board in June for delegation to the Chancellors

  • Authorize the UW-Madison Chancellor to approve recruitment, appointment, and set salary of Director of the State Laboratory of Hygiene, Director of the Psychiatric Institute, and State Cartographer.
  • Authority to grant an unclassified staff member an extension of a leave of absence beyond five years for the reasons enumerated in Regent Policy Document 20-6, Section III.

Recommend taking the following to the Board in July for delegation to the Chancellors

  • Use of modified chancellor titles (vice, assistant, associate, etc.) and assignment to a UW System salary range.
  • Approval of faculty salary upon return from limited appointment.
  • Approval of extraordinary salary ranges for unclassified staff.
  • Authorization to recruit, appoint, and set the salary within Board of Regents approved salary range for new Provost/Interim Provost salary.
  • Approval to establish institution specific peer institutions for market salary comparisons.

Recommend taking the following to the Board in October for delegation to the Chancellors

  • Approval of Provost pay plan and base adjustments.
  • Approval of recruitment and salary over 75% of President’s salary.
  • Approval of pay plan and base adjustments over 75% of President’s salary.

POSSIBLE FUTURE FLEXIBILITY CHANGES

UW-Madison requested the following flexibilities.

  • Make the Distinguished prefix easier to get. Several years ago, UW-Madison formally requested a change in the criteria to make it easier, but it was rejected by UW System. This one is very likely to be granted in the near future. If it is, we will work with you to get your ideas on criteria and approval process and will then work with academic staff governance.
  • Changing the program manager series so that they use the associate, no-prefix and senior prefixes rather than requiring the PQ to advance. We had support from a number of other campuses on this. We’ll wait to hear the status of this request.
  • We asked that they get rid of the PQ. Other institutions support that, but it will need a replacement. This will be looked into.
  • We raised the issue of whether the Category A pay ranges should be expanded to deal with people at or near the top of their ranges. System will likely not take any action on this right away, but will look at the compensation structure overall.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Thank you.