University of Kentucky trustees approve increase in Lee Todd's salary for two years - Education - Kentucky.comThe University of Kentucky Board of Trustees on Tuesday approved a plan to give retiring president Lee T. Todd Jr. a $157,046 annual raise and make it retroactive to the 2009-10 academic year.
The proposal, which also included a potential performance bonus of up to $50,000 for Todd, passed with two dissenting votes — faculty trustee Joe Peek and staff trustee Sheila Brothers.
Todd later said he would turn down the $50,000 bonus, but said the restructuring of his university salary was a fair way to stop politicizing the process of paying the UK president.
Todd said he is turning down the bonus because of "a perception that in a time when no one else is getting money the president is getting more."
Todd's salary will now be $511,046. His base pay is increasing nearly 52 percent to $461,046, plus he gets $50,000 for chairing the UK research foundation and athletics associations boards.
Sheila Brothers, the trustee representing UK staff, said that many of her fellow workers were also serving UK well and nonetheless living paycheck to paycheck: "I don't think this it the right time to do it," she said of Todd's raise.
She cited Todd's numerous services to UK, but added that "he would not have accomplished one of them without the faculty and staff behind him."
Trustee Pamela May said that such disparities exist in many workplaces: "We do not pay the cleaning lady what we pay the heart surgeon."
Trustee Pamela May said that such disparities exist in many workplaces: "We do not pay the cleaning lady what we pay the heart surgeon."
ReplyDeleteI've always wondered...
Who cleans up after the heart surgeon?
Oh, and who disinfects that operating room so the patients don't die of infection after that surgery?
Open season on poor people! Let's hope Pammy needs heart surgery during a strike.
Are they comparing professors with cleaning people on the corporate ladder? Inquiring minds want to know.
ReplyDeleteI was upset that the UK president was getting a big raise until I read, "The new amount was calculated based on the idea that Todd's salary should equal 82.5 percent of the average of presidential salaries at the top 20 public research universities, since the UK faculty make 82.5 percent of faculty salaries at the same institutions."
ReplyDeleteYou can rattle off the names of the best 20 research schools (see pg 20-23 of this. Is UK 82.5% as good as any of those?
Thanks to Fab Sun for posting this.
ReplyDeleteA bit of context. Last week President Todd announced that he was retiring. Interestingly this means he gets to miss out of all the fun when the Federal money runs dry in July 2011. The political hacks (also known as the Board of Trustees) thought it would be fitting to raise his salary (including last year retroactively) by 50 percent or 150K per year. Go Wildcats!
Of course, the fact that staff/faculty have not gotten raises for the past three years didn't bother them. They're not "important".
Just another day in the life of Education, Inc. that used to be known as the university.
I used to find this stuff ironic now it just sends me to the bottle.
The state AG just ousted the president of an R1 private university with less than 2,000 students for mishandling the endowment. His salary? A cool mil.
ReplyDeleteWhere do tuition hikes go?
ReplyDeleteThe staff should go on strike now.
My husband works in FacMan (Facilities Management- construction & housekeeping and all that good stuff) -- worked his way up from a student-part-timer, doing all the "grunt work" on the way to the project manager type he is now.
ReplyDeleteFrom what he tells me - housekeepers make the school GO. Construction could stop, IT could go to hell, but if there isn't adequate sanitation keeping up after so many thousands of students in a relatively small location every day? Chaos. Vermin. Disease.
He had to cheer up someone who was "just a janitor" and he helped him understand that he was vital, and not just in a "you're a cog in the great machine" speech that Dr. T. (of 5000 Fingers*) gives Mr. Zabladowski, the plumber, but you can tell that my husband at least REALLY believes it.
(I mean, we adjuncts with no hope of full time lectureships and students are also pretty essential, but we're more limited in our sphere of influence.)
*just for fun, the trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLYUJuinmHs
Yo Beaker, won't Walt be upset when he sees how far down the list his university is? What have you unleashed?
ReplyDelete