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Wisconsin state government salary

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According to 2008 Census data, the state of Wisconsin and local governments in the state employed a total of 379,539 people.^[1] Of those employees, 240,747 were full-time employees receiving a net pay of $998,312,248 per month and 138,792 were part-time employees paid $123,619,591 per month.^[1] More than 57% of those employees, or 218,585 employees, were in education or higher education.^[1]

The salary of Wisconsin's governor ranks 19th among U.S. governors' salaries. The average salary earned by U.S. governors is $128,735. The median salary earned by U.S. governors is $129,962. In 2010, the state lost 2,600 public employee jobs.^[2]

[edit] Elected officials' salaries

[edit] Legislators' salary

Wisconsin state legislators receive an annual salary of $49,943 per year.^[5] Legislators receive a per diem of $88 per day.^[5]

[edit] Judicial salaries

The salary of Wisconsin's chief justice ranks 29th among U.S. chief justices' salaries. The average salary earned by U.S. chief justices is $155,230. The median salary earned by U.S. chief justices is $151,284.^[6]

The salary of Wisconsin's associate justices ranks 29th among U.S. associate justices' salaries. The average salary earned by U.S. associate justices is $151,142. The median salary earned by U.S. associate justices is $145,984.^[6]

[edit] State employee benefits

Wisconsin describes its employees' fringe benefits as "significant."^[7]

[edit] Paid days off

Holidays The state provides nine legal holidays with pay^[7]:

• New Year's Day
• Martin Luther King Jr.'s Birthday
• Memorial Day
• Independence Day
• Labor Day
• Thanksgiving Day
• Christmas Eve Day
• Christmas Day

Vacation Vacation is earned by full-time employees at the following rate^[7]:

Personal days Employees are granted 4-1/2 days of personal holiday time.^[7]

Sick leave Full time state employees earn 5 hours of sick leave each bi-weekly pay period. Unused sick leave accumulates from year to year. The State matches a certain amount of the unused sick leave upon an employee's retirement, and the entire balance is converted at the employee's current hourly rate to pay health insurance premiums.^[7]

[edit] Insurance

Health

The state pays average $13,972 for health benefits for each state employee. That is higher than the average of $11,539 paid by other Midwestern states.^[8]

Public employees pay approximately 12% of the cost of their health insurance.^[9] Act 10 increased state employees' contribution to the cost of their health benefits from 4.3% to 12.4%. The law does state a fixed dollar amount for single and family coverage.^[8]

The increased contributions reduced the total compensation of state employees by more than $600 a year for those opting for single coverage and by more than $1,440 a year for those opting for family coverage.

A variety of Health Maintenance Organizations, Preferred Provider Plans, and fee-for-service health providers offer coverage.^[7] Some dental coverage is included in many of the group health insurance plans and the catastrophic insurance plan.^[7]

Life

An employee may have group term life insurance coverage in an amount up to 5 times his/her annual salary. The State contributes approximately 49% of the premium toward 2 of the 5 levels of coverage; however, the premiums for the remaining 3 levels of coverage are paid totally by the employee. Employees may also secure coverage for their spouse (up to $20,000) and dependents (up to $10,000) each.^[7]

Long-Term Care Insurance

Employees have the option of adding long-term care insurance to cover short-term and long-term home health care, assisted living, community-based care, and nursing home care. The plan is available only to State employees and annuitants, including their spouse, parents, and spouse's parents. Employees pay the full premium.^[7]

[edit] Retirement

Main article: Wisconsin public pensions

Employees are covered immediately under the Wisconsin Retirement System, which is the 9th largest public pension fund in the US and the 28th* largest public or private pension fund in the world.^[10] Vested employee-required contributions, approximately 5% of an employee's earnings, are made by the State on behalf of the employee. The State pays another 5-10%, depending upon the employee's occupational status, toward the non-vested employer-required contribution.^[7] Starting Aug. 25, 2011, employees will pay half of their retirement contribution.^[11]

The Wisconsin Deferred Compensation Program, which is a supplemental retirement savings program authorized under Section 457 of the Internal Revenue Code,^[12] is an option for all state employees.^[13] The program allows eligible employees an opportunity to save pre-tax earnings to supplement retirement income. Under Sec. 457, participants are allowed to defer up to the lesser of 100% of gross income or $16,500 in 2009.^[7]

[edit] Other benefits

• The Employee Reimbursement Accounts Program allows employees to pay eligible medical and dependent care expenses from pre-tax rather than post-tax income. In addition, premiums for State group health, catastrophic, and life insurance (excluding spouse and dependent life insurance coverage) may be treated as pre-tax deductions.^[7]

• The Commuter Benefits Program allows employees to save money on their commuting costs by using pre-tax dollars to pay for bus passes, parking expenses, and other mass transit costs.

[edit] Local government employees

Main article: Wisconsin local government salary

In 2011, Sunshine Review requested salary information from 19 local governments in the state.

[edit] Teacher's salaries

The average teacher salary for 2008-2009 in Wisconsin was $49,051, while the national average was $53,910. ^[14]

A searchable database for teacher salaries in Wisconsin is available. ^[15]

Districts across the state are developing new systems for measuring teacher performance that aim to better distinguish superior educators from those who are average or below par. They will likely use student achievement growth as one measure of performance, and the results of the evaluation may help administrators decide whom to promote, dismiss or provide with more targeted help. ^[16]

Despite changes in collective bargaining mandated at the state level, Wisconsin Rapids School Board members are willing to meet with the district's teachers to discuss concepts such as school policies, procedures and expectations. Before state legislation restricted many public employee unions' ability to collectively bargain last year, the district used consensus bargaining, allowing for such discussions as part of negotiations. Consensus bargaining differs from traditional contract negotiations in that both sides work toward developing solutions, rather than having each side present its own desired outcome. Proponents of consensus negotiations say the process allows both sides to approach the deal with more of an open mind. ^[17]

[edit] Public employee union protests

Protests erupted over a bill that would require state employees to contribute an average of 8% more to their pension and health care costs and the right to collective bargaining.^[18] Gov. Walker said that asking employees to pay half the national average for health care "is truly a modest request."^[19] Walker denied that his proposal is trying to break the unions yet there is no fiscal reason to attack collective bargaining.^[19][20] The legislature passed the bill^[21] and the governor signed the bill into law on March 11, 2011.^[22]

[edit] Provisions of the law

• Union Benefit Cuts

State employees are unhappy that they must now, under the new law, contribute 5.8% of their salary toward their pensions, and also pay 12.6% of their health insurance premiums, although it is not clear if Gov. Walker will be contributing to his own pension and health care costs.^[23] The move is anticipated to save nearly $300 million over the following two fiscal years.^[24]

• Collective Bargaining

The law also eliminates almost all union bargaining rights.^[24]

The proposal would take away most state and local workers of collective bargaining rights on everything except salary.^[25] Unions would be unable to seek pay increases above those pegged to the Consumer Price Index unless approved by a public referendum.^[18] In addition, unions also would have to hold annual votes to stay organized and would be unable to force employees to pay dues.^[18] unions would no longer have a say in workplace safety, conditions or hours. The bottom has dropped out, safety now is purely in the hands of your immediate supervisors' conscience say workers.

Employees who would retain their collective bargaining rights are local police, firefighters and state troopers, but only in regards to their wages.^[18]

University of Wisconsin faculty have had their statutory right to unionize revoked under the Budget Repair Bill, eliminating all collective bargaining rights for faculty at the campuses who have voted overwhelmingly to unionize at 5 of the 13 comprehensive campuses: UW-Eau Claire, UW-La Cross, UW-River Falls, UW-Stout, and UW-Superior. This is the first time in US history that a statutory right to collectively bargain has been overturned by a state government.

[edit] Passage of the law

To avoid a vote on the measure, 14 Senate Democrats disappeared and could not be found.^[26] They reportedly went to a hotel in Illinois.^[18] Republicans control the State Senate by 19 to 14, but to have a vote on fiscal matters, 20 senators must be present.^[26] The Senate Democrats, however, stayed away for weeks. The Senate scheduled votes on other bills of interest to Democrats, hoping that they would return to vote on them.^[27]

The Assembly passed the bill just after midnight on Feb. 25, 2011 in a fast vote seemingly taking after the Democratic tried to stall the proposal with more than 100 amendments.^[28][29] On Feb. 24, 2011, the Assembly reached a deal to limit amendments and debates and appeared to be close to voting on the bill.^[30] State troopers were then sent to the homes of the 14 missing Democrats, but they were not found. Democratic Sen. Jon Erpenbach said all 14 senators remained outside of Wisconsin and would not return until Walker was willing to compromise.^[30]

On March 9, 2011, the Senate moved to separate the collective bargaining language from the fiscal budget legislation language, because a quorum isn't needed for a nonbudgetary bill. The Senate could then vote on the collective bargaining language.^[31]

When Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald read the bill to a joint conference committee, Rep. Peter Barca objected, saying the committee's meeting was in violation of the state's open meetings law. The vote was held and the measure was approved.^[32]

After the Senate vote, the collective bargaining bill moved back to the Assembly on March 10, 2011, amid intense protests that prevented lawmakers from entering. Capitol police closed the building and removed demonstrators inside who refused to leave and reopened one entrance to the building, allowing lawmakers to enter for the vote.^[33] The Assembly passed the bill that afternoon.^[34]

Because the bill was not passed by Feb. 26, 2011, a key part of the proposal was lost because a refinancing of state debt that would free up $165 million will be lost if not complete by then. Should that refinancing fall through, more cuts will be needed to balance the budget.^[27] A payment on state debt is due by March 15.^[28]

School Closures

More than 15 school districts, including the Madison schools were closed for four days due to teachers and staff calling in sick.^[35][36] Judge Maryann Sumi of the Dane County District Court denied the Madison school district requests for an injunction against Madison Teachers Inc. so that schools could reopen.^[35]

[edit] Public v. private sector

The Wisconsin state budget is unable to cover unemployment benefits and is currently borrowing money from the federal government to pay them. The current outstanding loan balance is $1,424,769.^[37]

[edit] See also

• Public employee salary
• Wisconsin state budget

[edit] External links

• Wisconsin State Employment Opportunities
• See sample transparency legislation at the Sunshine Standard
• State Budget Solutions, Wisconsin

[edit] References

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