L&S Summer Compensation Maintenance Strategy

Until recently, many UW-Madison faculty and staff were paid on a monthly basis.  With the implementation of “Single Payroll” across the UW System in July 2021, all employees are now paid on a biweekly basis.  UW-Madison is continuing to work through all of the changes to payroll processes and calculations necessitated by this shift.

Within L&S, many summer payments have traditionally been based on ninths of the employee’s academic-year salary.  While the shift to biweekly payroll may necessitate change in the precise administration of summer payments, the College aspires to maintain traditional compensation levels by making use of the compensation tools provided by the Office of Human Resources (OHR), when appropriate. 

• Instructional (Summer Session or S-basis) Appointments for Summer, 2022

For summer term, L&S instructors have traditionally received one ninth of their academic-year salary for teaching an accelerated four-week course (100% appointment for one month) or standard eight-week course (50% appointment for 2 months).  This traditional practice is complicated under biweekly payroll because (1) the length of the appointment will correspond to the number of weeks in the course and (2) one month of salary is equivalent to 4.33 weeks of salary.  

For summer 2022, we will maintain traditional compensation levels to summer-term instructors through a combination of “base” and “supplemental” payments.  The base payment will be determined by the length of the course (100% appointment for 4 weeks, or 50% appointment for 8 weeks).  The supplemental payment will correspond to the additional 0.33 weeks of salary needed to achieve compensation equivalent to one ninth overall.  The precise compensation tool to be used to process these supplemental payments is explained in the L&S Summer Payroll packet, which will be distributed shortly. 

• Non-Instructional (Summer Research/Service or V-basis) Appointments for Summer, 2022

With 13 weeks between the end of the spring semester and beginning of the fall semester, L&S employees with Academic Year (C-basis) appointments will have the flexibility of funding research and/or service activities during the summer through the regular biweekly payroll schedule, without the need for “supplemental” payments.  Summer Research/Service (V-basis) appointment dates can be adjusted to reflect research and/or service activities. 

In cases where employees have documented commitments referring to “ninths,” whether full ninths or fractions thereof (e.g., 50% of 1/9), please contact ChoonYee Ho-Jonas for assistance in adjusting the summer salary worksheet to closely approximate those ninths. 

• Policies regarding all summer appointments:

Similar to the past practice of granting exceptions to the “8/9” rule, Deans have delegated authority to allow compensation received in the summer period to exceed 4.5 biweekly pay periods (9 weeks), provided that the summer teaching and/or research exceeding this threshold advances the mission of the department and College.  The L&S Summer Payroll packet will include specific instructions and acknowledgments for employees in this category. 

Note that in no case can summer compensation exceed the equivalent of 6.5 biweekly pay-periods (13 weeks) for additional summer assignments.