| The Real Story: Facts About
Milwaukee Area Technical College
Health Insurance
• Contrary to media
reports, MATC employees do pay for their health insurance.
There are three health insurance plans at MATC. The vast
majority of Local 212 members are part of the PPO plan.
That plan contains in and out of network deductibles,
co-pays, and co-insurance (i.e. paying 10% to
20% of some services depending whether the service is in
or out of network).
• During the last negotiations
between MATC and its unions, significant changes were made
to the health care plans in order to reduce the
level of increase in insurance rates . Health care
rates for MATC are going up only 2% for this coming
year .
• Experts in health care frown
upon requiring employees to pay for health insurance premiums
because this does nothing to curb health care utilization
and thus does not decrease overall costs. Rather, paying
on premium has shown to be an incentive to utilize health
insurance , thus increasing costs . In
the MPS arbitration ruling, Arbitrator Grenig wrote
the following:
“Where employees do share costs, the more
effective method is to share costs which lead employees
to think about whether they need the particular service
or not. These methods, commonly called "steerage",
include co-pays, co-insurance, deductibles and other cost
sharing tools that make the employee part of the process.”
The arbitrator then went on to say that
premium sharing is frowned upon by arbitrators because it
is ineffective in holding down costs.
Salaries
• The range of MATC
faculty salaries is $44,002 to $85,156. The
range reflects both the number of years of teaching experience
at MATC (there are 14 steps) and the level of education
the faculty member has. The top level of pay is reserved
for those employees with years of experience and at least
32 credits beyond a Masters Degree .
• MATC's average annual faculty
salary was $73,000 in 2004-5, $18,000 a year less
than the number the Journal-Sentinel has publicized
and Republicans have repeated . Average salaries
for administrators at MATC were $91,000 annually, almost
$20,000 more than critics have publicized. (Salary
figures from Wisconsin Technical College System; see attached
table).
• Salaries for MATC
instructors have increased only 2.8% a year over four years,
below the rate of inflation and lower than eight other technical
colleges in the state.
• Faculty members can earn
more than scale only if they teach extra classes or do administrative
duties over and above their teaching obligations.
• Unlike employees in other
professions who are paid 150% of their salary for overtime
work, faculty who teach above their regular load
are paid only 60% of their regular rate . This
rate is the same rate at which part-time faculty are paid.
• If full-time faculty did
not teach above their regular teaching load, their
replacements would either be part-time faculty who are paid
at the same rate, or the college would have to hire more
full-time faculty and pay them at the regular full-time
rate plus pay additional benefits. The latter
option would be required in many instances where part-time
faculty are not available to teach in particular areas.
• This means two things: a)
Full-time faculty teaching above load save the college many
hundreds of thousands of dollars each year, and b) Using
more part-time instructors instead of full-time faculty
for these extra assignments would save nothing.
Welding Training
• The Journal-Sentinel reported
on June 11 that MATC had only graduated 14 welders in the
class of 2005, a figure repeated by Republicans.
• In reality, MATC
trains well over 400 welders per year in a variety
of programs at three campuses that include One-Year Technical
Diploma, Two Year Associate Degree, Advanced Technical Certificate,
Welding Skill Certificate, Customized Training for Private
Industries, and Apprenticeship Training. In addition, several
other trades require welding training for their diploma,
degree and apprenticeship programs.
• The figure of 14 graduates
is accurate only for the One-Year Technical Diploma. Thirty-six
students were in the program to produce the 14 graduates,
as many students find the work unappealing while others
“job out,” that is, get jobs as a result of the training.
A few each year complete the course but don't fill out the
paper-work for graduation.
MATC Cost Per
Student Below Average
The real issue is how costly is instruction
at MATC compared to the other technical colleges. The answer
is that MATC is below the state average in cost per
FTE (full-time equivalent student), meaning it costs
less to instruct a student at MATC than at most of the other
tech colleges in the state.
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