 |
 |
 |
« June 2008 | Main | August 2008 »
Thursday, July 31, 2008 - 18:31:42
Thursday thoughts
Here's your chance.
PS -- I encourage you to scroll back to the item about state takeover of the Decatur schools for a blog reader's comment. He/she is from Decatur and has a strong opinion to offer from long experience.
The college bosses' payroll
News first: You'll eventually find below aother striking piece of information about the extraordinary compensation awarded UCA President Lu Hardin.
But I'll begin at the beginning.
The Times this week has a lengthy, but still abbreviated report on the pay of public college presidents and chancellors. Now comes the result of Higher Education Department research for legislators with a fuller accounting of pay and perks for the top Arkansas academic administrators for fiscal 2009. (None of them comes close to Bobby Petrino's seven-figure take to coach UA football, thank goodness.)
A memo accompanying the spread sheet on pay said no college official was found to be receiving pay greater than 25 percent more than line-item maximums from public funds. Many are receiving "private" supplements, generally from foundations related to the institution each leads.
Highlights:
Dr. Les Wyatt, president of the Arkansas State U. system, is the most highly compensated, at $540,610, just ahead of $538,722 for Dr. Alan Sugg, head of the UA system. Low man on the totem pole is UA-Monticello's Chancellor Jackson Lassiter at $219,024. UALR's chancellor, Joel Anderson, is at $275,473.
And, oh my lordy, here's another round of publicity for poor ol' LuCA.
Though he gave up his $300,000 early deferred comp payout and the Board suspended discussion of an additional $150,000-a-year deferred comp add-on, President Lu Hardin still ranks high in the collegiate stratosphere. Total compensation: $510,667. The breakdown: Pay, $253,774; car, $11,651; house, $27,196; cook, lawn service, building maintenance, utilities, etc., $55,252; deferred comp, $60,000 (this is the figure accruing annually under a deal approved by the Board three years ago); retirement match, $25,377; health insurance, $5,135; life insurance, $1,112; club dues, $11,277; cell phone, $2,893;
AND, ta da, a new and previously unreported perk of fairly sizable significance:
A $57,000 -- FIFTY-SEVEN THOUSAND DOLLARS -- expense account funded by the UCA Foundation. As we've noted previously, the foundation has been guided by a UCA employee and realizes some of its income from renting space to UCA.
I have questions pending about why Hardin's housing staff expense is computed at a much higher level than others and why he has such a large expense account, plus whether there's a public accounting available. (UPDATED ON JUMP)
Of the 13 university level administrators, only two others have expense accounts -- Robert C. Brown at Arkansas Tech gets $5,188 and Dr. David Rankin at Southern Arkansas University gets $25,000 (?!).
The two-year college bosses generally run from $170,000 to $200,000, with a couple of exceptions. Dr. Glenn Fenter at Mid-South Community College had total compensation of more than $238,000 and Becky Paneitz-Danks, chief of Northwest Arkansas Community College notched a bracket-busting $263,257.
Noted: the survey differs from ours in many ways chiefly because it ascribes a cost to such things as free housing and adds that into the total compensation package, though the expenses -- such as staff -- may be related to fulfilling public functions. These include dinners at presidents' housing and the like.
Thus, the UAF chancellor's total compensation is about $363,000 -- with $282,540 in base pay (including about $54,000 from private funds); $6,600 for a car; $31,000 for the free house; $9,200 for maid and lawn service; $23,000 in retirement match; more than $4,000 for club dues, etc.
Here's the spread sheet on colleges.
Here's the spread sheet on universities.
Read them and weep, or cheer, as you are so inclined.
Higher Ed is at work compiling figures from the two preceding years as well.
Don't like immigrants?
You'll love this website, arkansasfreedom.com
The text is tedious, but they have a pretty good cartoonist, even if I don't necessarily share the political point of view. Click here to see it.
Sorry, Bud, but ...
Former U.S. Attorney Bud Cummins wrote yesterday that he didn't believe the president, Karl Rove and other high Bush administration officials had anything to do with the run-amuck illegal political hiring in the Justice Department.
Do tell.
On May 17, 2005, the White House’s political affairs office sent an e-mail message to agencies throughout the executive branch directing them to find jobs for 108 people on a list of “priority candidates” who had “loyally served the president.”
“We simply want to place as many of our Bush loyalists as possible,” the White House emphasized in a follow-up message, according to a little-noticed passage of a Justice Department report released Monday about politicization in the department’s hiring of civil-service prosecutors and immigration officials.
It gets better (worse). It mentions, too, why this is one reason Karl Rove doesn't want to testify to Congress.
Another district down
As expected, the state Board of Education decided today to take over the Decatur School District because of an expected $500,000 deficit, years of accounting irregularities and little immediate prospect of fixing the problem in a district with fewer than 600 students. The state will appoint interim leadership and study whether the district should be merged with adjoining districts.Who knew he was gone?
The Arkansas Republican Party's next fund-raiser for the 2008 get out the vote effort is being styled as a "Welcome Home Governor Huckabee" event.
For $10,000, you can get some private face time with The Huckster in style befitting a Rockefeller. (And no telling what he might be willing to work out as a side deal.)
Maybe it's not a monarchy after all
A federal judge rules White House aides must answer congressional subpoenas and produce non-privileged documents. Implications for K-k-k-Karl?
Please note that the judge is John Bates, a Federalist Society-approved Republican appointee and former right-hand hatchet man to Whitewater Persecutor Kenneth Starr. Not exactly a leftist patsy.