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Professional Staff Compensation
Excess Compensation

ALERT: New State Law Mandate—Salary and Wage Freeze: Effective February 19, 2009 through February 18, 2010 there is salary and wage freeze for all UW employees except contract classified and classified non-union staff. Learn more about salary freeze restrictions.

Understand

This information applies only to overtime exempt professional staff employees. For faculty see the Academic Human Resources Excess Compensation web page.

Under exceptional circumstances overtime exempt professional staff may qualify for excess compensation for work that is not part of a position's regular duties, and that is typically performed outside of the employee’s regular department. If a professional staff employee temporarily takes on additional duties for his/her regular department, a temporary pay increase may be appropriate. Overtime eligible professional staff do not qualify for "excess compensation".

Examples of work that might qualify for excess compensation when they are not part of an employee’s regular appointment are:

Excess compensation may not exceed 25% of an employee's regular annual salary (see the excess compensation section of the Professional Staff Program).  Unlike excess compensation for faculty, professional staff can receive excess compensation for direct service on a research grant or from research grant funds subject to specific grant provisions.

Teaching For-Credit Courses in the Regular University Curriculum

Teaching in the regular University curriculum should normally be included in an employee's regular work schedule. The appropriate dean, vice president, or the provost may approve excess compensation for teaching when:

  1. The request to teach is an exceptional circumstance;
  2. The request is not expected to be repeated;
  3. The teaching is clearly in addition to regular University duties; and,
  4. The activities cannot be accommodated by release time.

Teaching in for-credit courses requires Academic Human Resources Office approval.

ACT

Excess compensation payments are processed in the Online Payroll Update System (OPUS) - see OPUS instructions.  

Obtaining and Documenting Approval

Excess compensation requires the approval of the department that will pay the excess compensation, the employee's home department and the dean/vice president for the employee's home department.  Approval documentation must be included in OPUS as described below.

  1. The paying department sends an email to the home department providing the information necessary to approve the excess compensation payment, including:
    1. The duties/services performed
    2. Dates of service
    3. Location of services
    4. Total amount to be paid
    5. Distribution budget to charge
    6. Authorized approval from paying department
  2. The home department confirms approval of the excess compensation payment and forwards the email to the home department dean/vice president.
  3. The home department dean/vice president confirms approval of the excess compensation payment and forwards the email to the paying department for OPUS entry.
  4. The paying department copies the email approval chain into the notes section of OPUS when processing payment.

EXPLORE

Excess Compensation Earn Type Definition