With budget cuts continuing to chip away at the University’s funds, University employees’ salaries are an important concern for many. And while faculty members complain their pay is too low, some also claim administrative salaries are too high.
And while faculty members agonize over their own paychecks, newly proposed legislation in the House of Representatives looks to reducing administrators’s salaries as a way to save money.
According to Kevin Cope, Faculty Senate president, the majority of faculty salaries have remained largely unchanged since 2008, with the exception of “celebrity scholars.”
“The faculty has lost all confidence in the state’s higher education system to pay fair wages,” Cope said in an e-mail. “Faculty members are fully demoralized.”
According to The Daily Reveille’s newly updated University salary database, the average salary at LSU hasn’t changed much since 2008, when the average was $67,248. For the 2010-11 year, the average salary is $67,721.
Chancellor Michael Martin said he agrees with Cope that there is a crisis in faculty funding and overdue raises.
The University needs to provide raises to those who have earned them to hold on to the best of the faculty, Martin said.
“These are hard times,” Martin said. “Other universities want to pick up our good faculty. We need to reward those members who deserve more.”
Rep. Simone Champagne, R-Jeanerette, recently proposed House Bill 173, which advises a reduction in the salaries of system presidents as well as college and university heads in the state.
“Over the last three years with the current deficit, we’ve looked at the budget, and some are proposing that we raise tuition on our families and students,” Champagne said. “However, there were no proposals to lower administrative and faculty salaries.”
Champagne said her bill proposes to cap the salaries of post-secondary education system presidents and heads of public colleges and universities at no more than 10 percent more than the average salaries for similar positions within Southern Regional Education Board states.
Martin has a yearly salary of $400,000. Though several coaches make more than Martin, he is the highest-paid academic administrator on campus. Other highly paid administrators include E.J. Ourso College of Business Dean Eli Jones, who makes $299,999 per year, and Provost Jack Hamilton, who makes $280,000.
The estimated average salaries of full-time administrators in public colleges and universities in the SREB states as of the 2008-09 year — the most recent SREB data available — include $297,543 for the chief executive officer, or chancellor; $210,711 for the chief academic officer, or provost; and $197,122 for the dean of business.
Because these statistics are from the 2008-09 school year, the salary averages may change upon future SREB updates.
When Hamilton took his post as provost, the position’s salary increased by $20,000 from that of predecessor Astrid Merget.
“The fact is, Astrid was probably underpaid. Things have changed since she got the job,” Hamilton told The Daily Reveille when he took up the post. “It’s a reasonable, comparable pay for what the job is. I could have asked for more, but I didn’t. It’s all about the marketplace.”
Champagne said administrators often receive a large salary along with additional benefits, including housing, car allowances and club dues.
“I feel that the salaries are just too high,” she said.
However, Martin disagrees that cutting administrative salaries would be effective in the long run.
Administrators have several expectations placed upon them, including work outside the University, and as long as the demand on them is high, they must carry on with their work, Martin said.
“This is the cost of running a university,” Martin said. “In comparison to many other universities, our administration is paid less than most.”
Martin said competitive salaries are a way to ensure the University has quality administrators.
“The bill is asking the wrong question,” Martin said. “We want the best quality possible for the University and are willing to pay what it takes to get the best.”
However, some at the University feel the bill won’t effectively combat the University’s budget problems.
“House Bill 173 is a ‘feel-good’ bill that will not address the problem,” Cope said. “The bill does contain some good ideas — for example, forbidding the paying of off-budget salary supplements that cannot be discovered or monitored by private citizens.”
Cope said the real problem plaguing Louisiana higher education is that it does not pay employees enough, and unimproved faculty salaries only exacerbate the issue.
“It would be far wiser to address the core problem, which is the disproportionate relationship between executive and faculty salary,” Cope said.
 
 
____
Contact Kate Mabry at [email protected]