Balancing compensation with public dollars that will attract and retain education’s best and brightest with reason seems to be a new way of thinking at the University of Minnesota.
We’ve criticized the university’s Board of Regents in this space previously for giving outrageous compensation and bonuses packages to university faculty.
But we’re encouraged by a new approach now being used by university leaders involving a special committee of the school’s regents reviewing polices for executive compensation and paid leaves to departing administrators that even U Pres. Eric Kaler has called generous.
The review has been spurred by years of huge bonuses and most recently by reports that former U Pres. Robert Bruininks granted $2.8 million of leave packages that compensated departing top administrators at their executive salaries, as they took time off to prepare for a return to teaching. He also waived a policy that requires administrators to repay those stipends if they do not return to the university.
According to those reports, Bruininks is entitled to a 12-month, $455,000 salary while on leave to assist him on his return to the faculty. Bruininks is now serving as interim president of the Bush Foundation and is expected to take a position at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs where he’ll be paid $341,000.
Kaler, in his inaugural address in September, pledged that he would reduce administrative costs every single year he is president of the five campus university, which supported by a $3.7 billion budget.
We look forward to this new approach bringing reasonable compensation to administrators and educators at this state’s top university. Everyone deserves to earn a good wage for a job well done, but that compensation must be able to stand the light of day, especially when it’s paid by public dollars.
