The problem of faculty flight at UW-Madison is a "crisis situation" that has worsened in the past two years, according to a new report, as professors are lured away to rival institutions with higher pay and better benefits.

The Commission on Faculty Compensation and Economic Benefits, a faculty led committee, recommended that the university adopt a more proactive retention strategy, rather than waiting to match expensive outside offers. The report was presented at a faculty senate meeting Monday.

"Such losses are extremely costly to the university," members of the commission wrote in the report. "The university loses prestige, the capacity to attract top researchers and teachers, and the ability to fulfill its mission to the state's citizens."

UW-Madison lost 65 faculty to outside offers between 2004 and 2006. The full professor salary at UW-Madison is 13 percent below the median salary in its peer group, according to the report.

"The percentage of faculty that we were able to retain that had outside offers has gone down since 2006, at least in certain schools," said the commission co-chair David Zimmerman, an associate professor in the English Department. "The morale of faculty, if not across campus, then in certain schools or departments, has plummeted."

The commission made the following recommendations:

• Deans and department chairs should continually adjust faculty salaries to keep them competitive, rather than reacting to outside offers.

• Less emphasis should be put on matching outside offers in allocating a $10 million retention fund established by Gov. Jim Doyle

• Increase compensation to faculty in proportion to the program revenue they generated in the previous year.

• Emphasize raising more donor money to support endowed chairs and professorships.

The report also cited concerns over a phenomenon called salary compression, which is the systematic decline in the salary difference between experienced or veteran faculty and new hires.

"We have substantial anecdotal evidence that compression creates resentment, antagonism and morale problems within departments," the report stated.

Preliminary evidence shows salary compression is an issue at UW-Madison, Zimmerman said, but more study must be done.