The University of Washington will pay Mark Emmert a salary comparable to his LSU salary to serve as president of the UW.
Last week, officials announced Emmert has agreed to a package that will pay him $590,000 a year and a $160,000 one-time bonus which is sometimes called a “relocation incentive payment.”
Emmert was introduced as the UW president on March 22. He is expected to officially take office sometime this summer.
LSU System President William Jenkins will serve as interim chancellor.
Norm Arkans, associate vice president for the UW’s University Relations, said the deal includes an annual base salary of $470,000, in addition to an annual bonus of $120,000 deferred for five years. The total amount of the bonuses is $600,000, although Emmert will not receive any of the bonuses if he leaves before the five-year period is over.
Arkans said Emmert’s annual bonuses will be placed in a fund each year. Emmert will not have access to the fund before the end of the five-year period.
The package is similar to the one Emmert has received at LSU. The University has paid Emmert a base salary of $490,000 per year, as well as a $100,000 annual bonus.
LSU Board of Supervisors chairman Roger Ogden said Emmert will have to pay back one year’s worth of the bonuses, amounting to $100,000.
Ogden said the Board has not yet discussed Jenkins’ salary, but plans to take the issue up at meetings in the near future.
Forest Benedict, the LSU System vice president for human resources management, said Emmert received his first $100,000 bonus in the form of a loan. Benedict said Emmert will be required to repay that money to the University.
According to a March 12, 2003 Reveille article, Emmert asked for the loan in July 2002, reportedly for the purpose of purchasing a home in Pensacola, Fla. At the time, Jenkins and members of the LSU Board of Supervisors saw the loan as a good idea because they felt it further bonded Emmert to the University.
The loan came from the general operating budget of the LSU Foundation and did not add any amount to Emmert’s salary package.
Benedict said he thinks Emmert’s UW salary is competitive for someone of his caliber.
“I think it certainly is a very competitive salary for a higher education leader,” Benedict said.
Emmert’s UW salary is higher than that of many other university presidents. University of Arizona president Peter Likins receives an annual salary of $285,000. University of California-Berkeley President Robert Berdahl and UCLA President Albert Carnesale both make $315,600 per year.
“It’s a little higher than some of the other schools in the PAC-10,” Arkans said. “But we hope he will do a lot of good things for us like he has done for [LSU].”
Arkans said Emmert’s package is one example of public universities closing the salary gap with private universities — which traditionally have paid administrators higher salaries.
In addition to his presidential duties, the UW also has appointed Emmert as a professor in the Daniel J. Evans School of Public Affairs.