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State's technical college pay topped UW compensation

GREEN BAY — Full-time instructors in Wisconsin technical colleges took home an average of $90,000 last year in base pay and overages, slightly more than the $86,000 in compensation for professors at the 13 University of Wisconsin universities, according to a published report.

Overages, which refer to additional teaching assignments, averaged about $12,000 for technical-college professors but only $1,400 per UW professor, according to a Gannett Wisconsin Media report.

Terry Fleischman, an instructor at Fox Valley Technical College, nearly doubled his $88,000 salary through overages. And Deb Seline, who teaches at Northeast Wisconsin Technical College in Green Bay, supplemented her $85,000 base salary with nearly $121,000 in overage pay.

Some argue that allowing professors to accumulate overages saves money by avoiding the need to hire additional workers. Others say the system limits staff diversity and allows for outsized compensation packages.

Taking on overages isn't necessarily easy. Seline said she aggressively pursued the extra work in the 2011-12 school year because of impending economic uncertainty. She estimated she worked as many as 15 hours per day, seven days a week, grading papers and answering about 150 emails daily.

"It was the year from hell, because all I did was grade papers," Seline said. "It was not fun, but it was an opportunity that I took advantage of."

Susan May, the Fox Valley Technical College president, defended Fleischman's total compensation of $163,581, second at the college only to her salary of $200,910. She said he agreed to teach extra sessions beyond his normal contract, took on a major development project and covered for another instructor on medical leave.