One year ago, I wrote a column called “Gravy Train” suggesting MATC teachers were overpaid. Last week, the Legislative Audit Bureau released a study of the state’s technical colleges that buttressed all of my charges.
The study found the average base salaries of technical college teachers in Wisconsin are “among the highest reported nationally.” It also found average annual earnings of the technical college teachers exceeded those of full-time faculty at two-year University of Wisconsin Colleges by a jaw-dropping $22,000.
As I’ve suggested before, the difference is explained by the fact that UW budgets are overseen by the state legislature, while technical colleges have boards that aren’t publicly elected and can levy property taxes to increase their budgets.
These boards have often been out-negotiated by unions. (Sometimes, I suspect, the boards don’t really try.) Thus, faculty at technical colleges statewide earn $74,598, nearly as much as administrators earn ($77,567) at these colleges. But Milwaukee has turned things completely upside down: Average faculty earn more ($89,850) than administrators ($86,556) at MATC.
MATC had 169 faculty earning more than $100,000 and just 19 administrators making that much, the audit found. No technical college in the state had such an absurd pay ratio.
Indeed, MATC faculty earn some $37,300 more per year on average than UW two-year college instructors and $12,800 more than four-year college instructors at UWM, who earn $77,100.
The MATC teacher’s union has made much of the salary of school President Darnell Cole, but the audit statistics show pretty low administrative pay overall at MATC: average earnings of $86,556, compared to four smaller districts in the state where average administrators’ earnings range from $89,292 to $102,053.
Now that the legislature has the facts, it should consider some kind of governance change to make the MATC board more answerable (and more visible) to the public. For too long, it has handed out raises for faculty with little or no scrutiny.
Steve Biskupic Denies He Was Pressured
Last week, I raised this question: Did the fact that Milwaukee U.S. Attorney Steve Biskupic was not among those purged by the White House mean he was sufficiently amenable to Republican political pressure? A glimmer of support for that theory came in a Sunday New York Times story on the removal of Albuquerque U.S. Attorney David Iglesias. In the story, a New Mexico Republican activist compared Iglesias unfavorably to prosecutors in Colorado and Wisconsin, who went after the issue of voter fraud.
That contention, however, had earlier been contradicted by a statement from the White House defending its purge of U.S. attorneys by noting “the lack of vigorous prosecution of election fraud cases in various locations, including Milwaukee…”
Biskupic himself, in response to my column, responded as follows:
“1. As far as I recall, I have never been contacted by the White House about anything (except my nomination as U.S. attorney more than five years ago). I never knew until published reports this week that someone was complaining to the WH about lax prosecution on voter fraud.
2. The local Republican Party did make public complaints to my office about voter fraud in Milwaukee, including a letter with specific allegations. You may recall we investigated and publicly rejected the specific allegations.
3. No one (beyond normal lawyer stuff such as a lawyer advocating for a particular client) contacted me to encourage or discourage the prosecution of the other public corruption cases. There definitely was no political pressure to pursue or not pursue a specific case.”
In addition to declaring there was no organized conspiracy to commit voter fraud in Milwaukee, thoroughly dashing Republican hopes on this issue, Biskupic has also gone after a prominent Republican, County Executive Scott Walker,on a smelly bond deal in a case that has languished.
True, Biskupic has mostly prosecuted Democrats, but there’s no evidence he’s been in any way biased. My speculation to the contrary last week was unfair.
CountySupervisors: Feed Me
Last week, Milwaukee County Director of Audits Jerome Heer released a study showing county supervisors earn far less than their counterparts in comparable cities. Heer did the study at the request of County Board Chairman Lee Holloway.
Heer was asked only to look at salaries, not at how many board members Milwaukee has versus other counties, perhaps because that would show we are paying a very high price for our government, even with the lower salaries. The fact is Milwaukee has more county supervisors than most cities.
Indeed, as I’ve written before, no state has more county supervisors than Wisconsin. Nearly 10 percent of all county board members in the United States can be found in Wisconsin, according to figures from the National Association of Counties (NAC). That’s right, of some 18,751 county supervisors nationally, 1,793 are located in the Badger State.
Even massive states like California, New York and Texas have fewer total board members than Wisconsin. And most cities have less than Milwaukee’s 19 county supervisors.
If the board wants to base its salary on other cities, then it’s only fair to look at the total salary load for supervisors. As it happens, the Citizens for Responsible Government has gleefully run these numbers in a quick study they did, and the answers show we are still paying more for our county supervisors than other cities. Unless the board wants to cut the number of supervisors, it could have a hard time convincing the public that salaries need to be raised.
Short Takes
– Last week’s Journal Sentinelstory written in the wake of criticism of the country’s veterans’ medical care system told us spending for VA care more than doubled since 1995. But since the administration of George W. Bush is being criticized, why run statistics that include five years under Democrat Bill Clinton? What was the growth since 2001? That would tell us much more, either pro or con, about the current president’s commitment to veterans.
– Patrick McIlheran once again exposed the problem of a columnist who’s never reported on politics in this state. His recent column claimed Tommy Thompson didn’t raise taxes, but simply relied on economic growth to pay for his spending, unlike Jim Doyle.
It’s been well-documented that Thompson made all sorts of “modifications” in fees, including more than 100 in his 1995 budget, to raise more revenue. But his best dodge was neglecting to adjust the state income tax for inflation. Thus, as inflation drove a person’s salary to more than $20,000 annually, he or she was forced to pay the top tax rate of 6.9 percent. Between 1988 and 1995, this increased the number of taxpayers paying the top tax rate from 23 percent to 63 percent. Finally, media attention to the problem forced the governor and legislature to index the income tax to end this automatic tax hike.
There are veteran reporters at the JS who know this. Why doesn’t McIlheran just ask?
And don’t miss Ann Christenson’s Dish on Dining
