Univ. of Wisconsin Athletics Asks Top 25 Earners to Take Voluntary Pay Cuts

The University of Wisconsin Athletics Department has asked its 25 highest-earning individuals to take a voluntary 15% paycut to help the school cope with the ongoing global coronavirus pandemic, Director of Athletics Barry Alvarez announced on Saturday. This is in addition to a Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development Work-Share program that will see most other employees (and pay) have their work hours reduced by either 20 or 50%.

“Reducing compensation and work hours is obviously not something I want to see for any of our Badger Athletics family,” Alvarez said. “But we are facing the same financial challenges that other organizations across the country are. We are working hard to minimize the impact on our employees while responding to the realities of the situation created by the pandemic.

“I greatly appreciate our highest earners’ willingness to consider voluntarily accepting a temporary reduction in pay, as well as the rest of our staff who are sharing in this exercise by reducing their hours to help us navigate our way through these unprecedented times.”

The school says that the combination of these two programs will save the athletics department an estimated $2.8 million.

While the top 25 earners will not see a reduction in work hours in exchange for their salary reductions, the school says that around 350 other employees will. Those 350 employees will be able to apply for expanded unemployment benefits that “in most cases offset lost wages through July 25,” the department says.

“Use of the Work-Share Program allows UW Athletics to retain skilled employees by reducing work hours while allowing employees to supplement lost wages with unemployment benefits,” Wisconsin says.

Among University of Wisconsin employees, the 7 highest-paid individuals in 2019 were in the athletics department:

1. Paul Chryst, head football coach – $3,996,900.96
2. Greg Gard, head men’s basketball coach – $2,433,000.37
3. Barry Alvarez, athletics director – $1,550,000.04
4. James Loenhard, assistant football coach – $982,916.00
5. Joseph Rudolph, assistant football coach – $791,200.00
6. Jonathan Tsipis, head women’s basketball coach – $661,600.37
7. Anthony Granato, head men’s hockey coach – $560,449.96

The highest-paid non-athletics employee is economics professor and department of economics chair Ananth Seshadri, who earned $556,854.82 in 2019.

Head swim coach Yuri Suguiyama, who was hired before the 2018-2019 season, was the 31st highest-paid employee in the athletics department in the 2019 fiscal year, earning $178,605.90 from the university. That was a substantial increase over the approximately $143,000 his predecessor Whitney Hite was paid in the prior season.

Suguiyama is the 28th highest-paid coach in the Wisconsin Athletics Department (based on 2019 numbers). He’s the 11th highest-paid head coach behind the head coaches of football, men’s basketball, women’s basketball, men’s hockey, women’s volleyball, women’s hockey, men’s soccer, wrestling, men’s track & field, and women’s soccer.

Wisconsin’s stay-at-home order is in place until at least May 26th. The state has recorded 9,590 confirmed cases of coronavirus with 384 deaths caused by COVID-19.