The University of Wisconsin-Madison is one of the best universities in the land, with top scholars in their fields. But professors there make less money than instructors at Milwaukee Area Technical College.
The average salary for a full-time MATC professor, according to a public records request I made to the college, is a jaw-dropping $91,000.
That’s the average, remember. Many are earning in excess of six figures.
How high is this salary? It is about $20,000 more per year than MATC administrators, who earn an average salary of just over $71,000.
It is about $23,000 more than the average professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee earns: A full professor gets about $84,000, an associate professor $65,000, an assistant professor $57,000.
Full-time academic instructors at MATC teach for 15 hours (five classes) a week, compared to nine hours (three classes) for a typical university professor. But professors must get a doctorate, must be scholars in their chosen field, must publish or perish. Most MATC instructors lack a doctorate and many lack a master’s degree. Some don’t even have a bachelor’s degree. But they get $91,000 and a terrific package of benefits.
UW-Madison has some of the finest scholars in the world. Yet full professors there earn just under $98,000, associate professors earn $73,000 and assistant professors $64,000. Most of these scholars could make more in salary and benefits if they got hired at MATC.
MATC union president Michael Rosen says the average salary earned by staffers can include “above load” work: extra classes during the year and summer teaching. But many instructors don’t work at all in the summer.
The explanation for the irrational pay at MATC is twofold. First, the MATC board is not elected and is selected through an arcane, little-understood procedure: Board presidents of all public school districts in the area select members of the MATC board. Labor unions have been smart and pro-active about getting union sympathizers appointed to the board, which has generally supported generous pay increases for MATC’s unionized staff.
Second, MATC also has the ability to levy property taxes. Look on your property tax bill and you’ll find that along with a tax for city, county and public schools, a portion of your payment goes to the budget of MATC.
Both MATC and the University of Wisconsin system get state funding as allocated by the elected state Legislature. But UW lacks the additional funding source that comes from levying your own property tax. That largely explains the irrationality of a state that pays far more to community college instructors than top professors.
For nearly nine years (1992-2001), former MATC President John Birkholz , a former union representative himself, agreed to fat raises for college staff. But current President Darnell Cole has taken a tougher stand on salaries and benefits.
In union newsletters, Rosen has condemned Cole’s proposals for this round of contract talks, saying they would “destroy almost everything the union has spent decades building for this college.”
So you can expect some tough negotiations. But as the union attacks Cole, it’s instructive to look at what kind of compensation their members are getting.
The Journal Sentinel’s Moldy “Scoop”
Last Tuesday’s top JS headline told us “Clout Moving to Suburbs,” with a graph showing that the total tax base of Waukesha County is likely to pass Milwaukee County’s by the year 2014. But the story is old, speculative and probably misleading. How in the world did it get front-page, top-of-the-fold placement?
To begin with, the article was based on an 11-month-old study by the Public Policy Forum, released in March 2005. If this is such a big scoop, why didn’t it run last March?
Worse, reporter John Schmid ignored past reports by the Public Policy Forum, which had a different conclusion. The group’s study in February 2003 predicted that “Waukesha is on pace to take over as the region’s biggest source of property wealth in a few years.” That prediction would suggest that Waukesha would be passing Milwaukee by 2007. The real scoop, it appears, is that the forum’s latest estimate has moved back the date at which Waukesha will pass Milwaukee – from 2007 to 2014.
PPF President Jeffrey Browne concedes that his group’s research has moved the date forward and that as the group looks at future numbers, the date could move even further into the future. “Or it could go the other way,” he adds. “It just depends on what happens in the future, so we don’t know.”
What might change the group’s prediction? How about the fact that the City of Milwaukee is enjoying a boom in development and condo conversions? Or that the last assessment had the biggest increase for city-wide property values in 50 years? Or that Waukesha is running out of water it needs to support development and could have problems even supporting its current population? How about the impact of high gas prices and long commute times on exurban development?
These and many other factors could change the next prediction by Browne’s group, as he concedes. This is a moving target and one that’s already moved in the 11 months since his last report.
Burying the Dick Cheney Story
Let’s try a thought experiment. Imagine it’s 1999 and Vice President Al Gore goes hunting and shoots his companion in the face and heart and then sits on the news for nearly a day. Can you picture the outbreak of coverage and ridicule it would generate on the Fox network? Or the front-page treatment it would get in the Journal Sentinel , a newspaper whose headlines echo the old Sentinel style of giving big play to murders and sensationalism?
But the first Dick Cheney story last week was put at the bottom left-hand side of page one, in the least prominent place possible. Far more prominent were such stirring stories as “Bay Shore strives to hire the jobless” and “Abbott Labs might have plans in Kenosha area.”
The following day’s story, revealing that Cheney sat on the story, was relegated to page three. Page one gave us the momentous story that a charter school hadn’t yet sold its BMW, paid for with taxpayer funds.
If the goal was to serve readers, surely the first shooting by a vice president since 1804 is of high importance, probably compared to any story, and surely as compared to an article about a company that may or may not have plans to expand in Kenosha. If the goal is to sell papers, it’s rather obvious which story should get the most play. So obvious that you wonder why it wasn’t done.
