Arecent report released by the Legislative Audit Bureau that looks at the personal practices and policies of the University of Wisconsin System found that faculty use a great deal less sick time compared to other staff.
In a response, UW System President Kevin Reilly addressed the concerns in the audit and ensured they would be reported on and further investigated over the upcoming months.
This editorial board applauds Reilly and the UW System for taking steps and working with the Legislative Audit Bureau to make UW practices more transparent.
The audit found that in 2005, 45.2 percent of all UW System employees used no sick leave time. The amount of sick time use reported was much lower among unclassified staff—which includes faculty, senior administrators and research staff—than classified staff, such as financial and technology specialists.
Faculty members reported using only 0.8 sick days on average in 2005, while classified staff reported using 6.8 days of sick leave. In fact, over 6,000 unclassified staff reported using no sick leave time from 2003 to 2005.
This large difference between reports of sick leave usage is a problem because retiring employees are able to convert unused sick leave time to health insurance credit.
Unclassified staff faculty reported converting sick leave to $222,100 of health insurance at the time of retirement in 2005, while classified staff only converted $47,600 to sick leave during the same period.
Reilly noted that the demands on faculty are different from other classified and unclassified staff, which causes them to report less use of sick time. He also said that faculty convert more sick leave on average at retirement because they have had their positions for a longer period of time.
The difference in responsibility and length of time a position is held is duly noted, but it should be of utmost importance that employees do not misreport their sick leave in order to work the system and gain extra health insurance credit at retirement.
If the Legislative Audit Bureau and the UW System work closely, it will be possible for sick leave reporting to be more transparent and uniform for all levels of employees—something that will greatly increase confidence in our university and assuage university relations with the state.
