In the 2011-12 fiscal year, the nation’s highest paid public university president was Graham B. Spanier, the president of Pennsylvania State University, who was forced out in November 2011 over his handling of a child sex abuse scandal involving a football coach.
Carolyn Kaster/Associated Press
Graham Spanier, the former president of Pennsylvania
State University, was the nation’s highest paid public university
president in the 2011-12 fiscal year.
According to the annual compensation report
by The Chronicle of Higher Education, Mr. Spanier was paid $2.9 million
in 2011-12, including $1.2 million in severance pay and $1.2 million in
deferred compensation.
“The fact that Graham Spanier turns out to be the highest paid president
in the country says something about the nature of compensation packages
for people who leave under a cloud,” said Jack Stripling, the Chronicle
reporter who worked on the survey. “Severance agreements are often very
lucrative.”
Three other public university presidents also had compensation topping
$1 million: Jay Gogue of Auburn University, at $2,542,865; E. Gordon Gee
of Ohio State University, at $1,899,420; and Alan G. Merten of George
Mason University, at $1,869,369. Mr. Merten retired from George Mason
last June after 16 years as president.
Mr. Gee, who in 2007 became the first public university president to
earn more than $1 million, had a base salary last year of $830,439, the
highest among the 212 chief executives included in the Chronicle report.
He is known for prodigious fund-raising energy, which has brought the
university more than $1.6 billion since he took the post, and for the
lavish lifestyle his job supports, including a rent-free mansion with an
elevator, a pool and a tennis court and flights on private jets.
Mr. Stripling said there had been a sea change in the last few years,
with the rich getting richer and some pay packages exceeding not just $1
million, but $2 million. Deferred compensation agreements can increase
pay drastically, as was the case with Mr. Gogue, whose pay went from
$720,000 to $2.5 million in a single year when he completed a five-year
contract.
But the biggest growth last year, Mr. Stripling said, was in the
$600,000 to $700,000 range, a category that included 28 chief
executives, up from only 13 the previous year.
According to the Chronicle report, the median total compensation for the
presidents of public research universities was $441,392, up 4.7 percent
from the previous year’s $421,395. The median base salary, $373,800,
was up 2 percent from $366,519 the previous year.
Rounding out the top 10 earners were Jo Ann M. Gora of Ball State
University ($984,647); Mary Sue Coleman of the University of Michigan
system ($918,783); Charles W. Steger of Virginia Tech ($857,749); Mark
G. Yudof of the University of California system ($847,149); Bernard J.
Machen of the University of Florida ($834,562); and Francisco G.
Cigarroa of the University of Texas system ($815,833).
Anything more than $ 2 million total income of any manager is absurd .
ReplyDeleteWhere one can spend that money .
I believe good managers must be compensated deerly but no more than $ 2 million total .