education & housing
A state-mandated report that contains top administrative salaries and non-salary benefits at the University of Houston shows that while most top administrator salaries remained steady for fiscal year 2004, one associate vice-chancellor received a 13.5 percent increase from the previous year.
“There is a greater and greater demand for accountability,” said Charles Zucker, executive director of the Austin-based Texas Faculty Association, which lobbies and provides legal assistance for faculty members at state institutions. “We think the administrators ought to be accountable. And the board [of regents] who allow these raises should be accountable to the people for the kinds of outrageous pay raises that people have gotten over the years.”
The Academic Accountability report is a new way to account for the highest administrators’ salaries, which have increased more than three to five times as fast as the salaries of the faculty over the past decade.
The report lists the salary percentage increase from the previous year along with moving allowances, longevity payments, leased cars and benefit plan disbursements. It does not include cash bonuses, practice plan benefits or housing allowances.
A rider from House Bill 1, the General Appropriations Act of the 78th Legislature, titled Administrative Accountability, states that an institution of higher education must submit a report to the Legislative Budget Board no later than Dec. 1 of the fiscal year that includes the name, salary and total non-salary benefits for each high-ranking administrative position from chancellor to assistant dean.
The rider, which took effect in June 2003, was put in to House Bill 1 to trace the widening gap between faculty and administrative salaries in Texas.
The TFA conducted a study, released in 2002, that found the average salaries of Texas public university presidents and chancellors increased much faster than professors' pay since 1992.
According to the study, Faculty and CAO Salary Study: Salary Growth Rates in Higher Education, the average 2002 base salary for chancellors was $332,000, a 54 percent gain in constant dollars, which takes into account inflation and spending power, over their 1992 average salaries.
The average 2002 base salary for university presidents was $206,000, a 34 percent increase in constant dollars over the same time.
By contrast, the average 2002 salary for full professors was $80,500, an 11 percent increase in constant dollars since 1992. The average 2002 salary for assistant professors was $49,800, a 10.8 percent increase during the 10-year period.
According to the UH budget for fiscal year 2004, total salaries for both the administration/finance department and the faculty decreased by about 3.3 percent from the previous year, while salaries for the president and his staff increased by about 4.6 percent.
Jay Gogue, chancellor of the UH System and president of the main campus, currently makes $415,292, according to the Administrative Accountability report, which does not include the president’s home.
“I think since the whole Enron thing people can see there is a problem in terms of CEO’s salaries and benefits spiraling out of control,” Zucker said. “What we see that has happened in the private sector has also happened in the public sector. High ranking university administrator salary increases just go off the charts.”
Non-salary benefits for the top administrators add a considerable amount to their overall compensation, which is why the report calls for that information to be disclosed, but the report does not include all the benefits.
“A lot of perks of the top administrators include things like free golf course memberships, free houses and cars. Many also receive extra retirement benefits and lump-sum payments to take a job,” Zucker said.
Robert Jackson, the Houston representative for TFA, said non-salary benefits need to be reported so that the public has a full view of what the top administrators are being paid.
“There are no guidelines set for administrative salaries, and the board of regents has traditionally gone with what the presidents want. These people can basically set their own salaries,” Jackson said. “Now is that in the public’s best interest? I don’t think so.”
Six separate offices of the university were contacted in regards to the Accountability report. All offices declined comment and referred inquiries to the Office of University Communications.
The report, which was required to be in the M.D. Anderson library at UH for public inspection was missing Wednesday.
“This was a new report required to be filed this year,” said Mike Cinelli, executive director of the Office of University Communications. “We submitted it on time to the Legislative Budget Board as well as the appropriate House and Senate offices. It was an oversight on our part not to have it placed in the M.D. Anderson Library before now.”
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