Ann Clarke and James Steinberg each stepped down from their positions as Syracuse University deans before this academic year and became faculty members, but it’s unlikely their salaries have changed significantly.

When SU deans and administrators step down, they keep most of the salary they earned in their administrative roles — about 82 percent of it, according to current and former members of the University Senate Committee on Budget and Fiscal Affairs. It’s a policy some say is unfair to traditional faculty members and one that drains money that could be better spent elsewhere.

The budget committee expressed concerns about the policy at a Senate meeting in April, with then-committee chair Dawit Negussey calling the model unsustainable.

Current committee chair Bruce Carter, an associate professor in the David B. Falk College of Sport and Human Dynamics, said he has since been told by SU officials that the policy will be changed moving forward.

Kevin Quinn, SU’s senior vice president for public affairs, said in an email that SU no longer uses the policy.

“The University now evaluates compensation for any faculty member prior to him/her taking on an academic leadership position,” Quinn said.

The Daily Orange requested an interview with Interim Vice President and CFO Gwenn Judge but was not granted one.

Carter said the change in policy will affect deans and administrators hired this fiscal year or later. If and when they step down, their salaries will be reduced to that of the highest-paid faculty member in the school or college where they join the faculty. That, Carter said, is a fairer policy, since the highest-paid faculty members typically make much less than 82 percent of an administrative salary.

But deans and administrators who were hired before this fiscal year will still keep 82 percent of their salaries if and when they step down, Carter said. Additionally, the former deans and other administrators already in faculty roles will continue to make 82 percent of the salaries they earned as administrators.

Ideally, the budget committee would like to see SU restructure contracts of current deans and administrators hired before this fiscal year so that when they step down, their salaries are also reduced to the equivalent of the highest-paid faculty member in the school or college, Carter added.

“This kind of open-ended compensation is not good for the institution in general,” Carter said.

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Deans’ salaries are generally among the highest at the university: Of the deans for schools and colleges listed on the university’s 990 form for the 2014 fiscal year, their salaries averaged to $486,239.

There are currently at least nine former full-time deans working as faculty, in addition to former administrators. Sometimes, their salaries after stepping down might even surpass 82 percent of their administrative salaries.

Melvin Stith made $496,831 in the 2014 fiscal year as a professor in the Martin J. Whitman School of Management, according to the 990 form. That was slightly more than he made as Whitman’s dean, according to 990 forms.

The policy of paying former deans inflated salaries doesn’t appear to be typical at other universities. University Senate budget committee members from several of SU’s peer universities — Cornell University, Georgetown University, Lehigh University, Southern Methodist University and Tulane University — said they knew of no such policy at their respective universities.

Former deans and administrators entering faculty roles typically aren’t as qualified for higher pay as faculty members who have been in their positions for years, Carter said.

Pay raises for faculty members are largely based on their research productivity, he said. Those who have been working as deans or in other administrative roles are less likely to have been productive in their research, given the time commitment of being an administrator, Carter added.

“It at least creates the impression that it’s sort of grossly unfair for somebody to be paid at that rate when they didn’t have the grants or the publications or whatever the markers are for the given school or college,” he said.

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Considering that SU’s budget is about $1 billion, paying former deans and administrators high salaries is “kind of just a drop in the bucket,” said Johanna Keller, an associate professor in the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications and former budget committee member.

But, Keller added, it’s a larger issue when considering that the university recently bought out 254 staff members, many of which theoretically could have been kept if the policy didn’t exist. She called the policy a “golden parachute” for deans and administrators who don’t have to perform well to receive the benefits.

“We seem to continually hire new vice presidents and raise salaries for administrators,” she said. “… It is a bad precedent to also add this extra burden of pay, but it seems to be part and parcel of a sort of general trend in our economic system, which is to award those on top at the expense of those underneath, those who do the work.”

SU officials have at least appeared to acknowledge and respond to criticisms of the policy.

In a recent meeting with the University Senate members, Michele Wheatly said if she were to step down as vice chancellor and provost, she would enter SU’s biology department and her salary would be reduced to that of the department’s highest-paid faculty member, according to Carter.

The same would be true for any other administrator or dean hired this fiscal year or in the future, Carter said.

“At least that’s what we’ve been told,” he said. “Because we don’t have access to salary information for everybody, we don’t really know. So we’ll (believe them). What else are you going to do?”

Published on September 6, 2016 at 11:33 pm

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