The Duck’s Dana Altman now makes more than 3x as much as OSU’s basketball coach. John Canzano has the news on the 7% cut here. Details on Altman’s most recent raise, which Pres Schill and our Trustees gave him during the 2019 budget crisis, is here.
A snippet. This is contract year 4:
Thanks to a generally reliable source for the link.
Donating it back is not the same as taking a cut. Think tax write off and PERS. But still might be reasonable expectation for UO coaches as well.
Tell me more about this cap at $150k salaries? Seems like this would protect a lot of jobs, and/or reduce tuition significantly.
If you cap jobs at 150k good luck getting quality admins and faculty. Might feel good but won’t serve you in the long run. You likely have hundreds of faculty making more than 100k and a decent # making more than that. Some of the those faculty bring in millions in research $. Now way they are going to take less out of the kindness of their hearts as kind as their hearts may be. I say this as a VP where a number of faculty make more than I do and I am ok with that.
If you put on the 150k cap for a 6-month period, say until 10/31, I doubt that all those faculty and administrators will suddenly jump ship to test the waters in the job market today. And given the hiring freeze for at least 6 months, I don’t think it will affect recruitment either.
The really dumb idea — and I’m a liberal capitalist, not a socialist at heart — is the philosophy summarized as “if we don’t pay the CEO 100+ times what we pay the worker, we can’t attract a good CEO.” (Or football coach or whatever.) This kind of evolved overcompensation is like the Irish elk — competition led to absurdly large antlers led to extinction. But they did have great big antlers back in the day. (Ok, ok, big biologist debate there.)
Why does it seem radical to put a temporary cap of 2.5x median household income on salaries? It’s pretty far from “Eat the rich!”
Also, this kind of proposal doesn’t feed the admin vs faculty vs coaches acrimony.
I wouldn’t be against a salary cut for 6 months for anyone over that but erasing their salary completely down to 150k is not the answer. I may have misunderstood as I thought “It’s Classified” was advocating for a permanent cut down to 150k or not offering more than that in the future.
“Quality admin” is an oxymoron in academia.
There are lots of good admins in academia, you all just don’t seem to attract them and when you do the acrimony and nutsy culture causes them to flee. Plus the word is out that no good admin in their right mind wants to work at the O. I have heard that in multiple circles from multiple people. A search consultant called me once about applying there and I politely told them no and also told them good luck selling that place to anyone given the workplace culture there.
Bitter much?
Not bitter at all and no reason to be. Can you think of a good reason to step into the mess you write about all the time?
Other than the fact that it’s a good university with great colleagues doing interesting research, and enough really smart students to keep me plenty busy for 25 years, no I can’t. Sorry.
Doesn’t seem to be the picture you paint all the time on this blog. Your blog coupled with reporting about the university, the acrimony between unions and admin, etc. don’t paint a compelling recruitment picture. Combine that further with the unceasing financial mess. That PERS problem you have is a huge albatross. I am not saying you don’t have some good things going on, every university does, but you have a lot of big big issues that wouldn’t entice a lot of good people who study up on the issues.
I’ll guess that whoever suggested $150k makes just under $150k. Everyone always suggests that the max anyone “should” make is always a little more than their salary.
Anyway, if you wanted to do this the better cut would be a percentage, ramping from 0% at $40k or whatever the OR median is up to a ceiling of something (50%?) at $150k or whatever the top 10 percentile is.
Big XII is right, though, this would make people leave. Not immediately, but as soon as things got better anywhere. Why should someone stay at a school that slices its faculty and not its coaches?
The much better thing would be to gut sports and leave the academic salaries alone. What’s the downside of this?
I suggested the $150k cap, just for a 6-month period. I don’t work for the UO (though I care about it) so it wouldn’t affect my finances at all.
If you like percentages, this corresponds to a 10% cut for those making $165k and a 25% cut for those making $200k, and a 50% cut for those making $300k, and a 80% cut for those making $750k, etc. :) Up to a million or so, it’s still below the 1960 marginal tax rate, adjusting for inflation. Some people just don’t like high-percentage ceilings these days. But Piketty would go for 80% on a permanent basis… I’m just suggesting this for a 6-month emergency!
I think I was including the coaches in this plan. I included all classified and unclassified employees from the publicly accessible 2019 salary information in calculating the savings from a $150k cap. (Calculations and more humor in the comments on the “UO lays off 282…” post).
The football coach at Online State University makes three times what the president of that school does. Without digressing into the normal kvetch about the ridiculousness of those salaries, it amazes me that nobody thought about the marketing possibilities of these times. Rather than volunteering to donate what is a literally pittance for the guys – and get the appropriate tax break – back to the department, any coaches making >$2M could easily agree to take a $1M cut in salary for the year with the agreement that the funds would be redirected to whatever funds are on campus to provide direct assistance to students. Heck, you could even use that to offset mandatory student fees that go to the athletics department.
In short, let that cut be BIG, meaningful, and directly impact – in a positive way – the bottom line for the students of their school. Don’t funnel it back in through the foundation to keep assistant associates on in their Benjamin-lined nests.
Who knows – maybe the advanced marketing team for the Ducks will realize that first. Imagine being the coach that literally gives a million bucks back to the kids. Imagine the goodwill.
Imagine the press.
I dunno, Orville – that would never fly…