Last updated on 04/04/2020
Reporter James Crepea here, with a simple recitation of the facts and numbers:
EUGENE — Oregon athletic director Rob Mullens and UO president Michael Schill are among a group of the university’s top administrators taking voluntary pay cuts for at least the next six months — and possibly through the 2020-21 school year — and the school has instituted a hiring freeze due to the coronavirus.
Schill announced the measures, including a 12 percent reduction in his pay and 10 percent reduction for Mullens and 10 UO vice presidents, during a virtual town hall meeting for faculty members, staff and graduate employees on Thursday.
“Simply put, we are all going to have to make sacrifices,” Schill said.
… Mullens, who in under contract through June 2025, earns $717,500 salary plus deferred compensation, performance and retention bonuses. He is due a $200,000 retention bonus at the end of June.
Schill, who received a $100,000 bonus in December, is earning $720,000 in salary in the second of a five-year contract through June 2023 and is due $738,000 next year. He can earn annual bonuses up to $200,000 and also receives a $50,000 annual retirement contribution, vehicle stipend and is due a $200,000 retention bonus if he remains president until Sept. 30, 2021.
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Or you can read the free Around the O’s version of events, by a former journalist now held in captivity by VP Kyle Henley in the bowels of Johnson Hall, here. A cry for help from Virtual Town – our common future:
As it turns out Mullens’s salary was actually $780K last year, plus a $100K retention bonus, plus some other bonuses and perks like a car and country club dues:
Here’s his 2015 contract, for some reason his new one is not posted at https://publicrecords.uoregon.edu/documents
[pdf-embedder url=”https://uomatters.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Mullens-2015.pdf” title=”Mullens 2015″]
I bet they are getting ready to ask/demand pay cuts for us of 10%.
I don’t see how they can possibly be making their budgets, at least past this quarter, if even that far.
If on-campus classes don’t resume in summer or fall, it’s going to be very hard to get students to pay the current tuition, especially out of state.
In any case, with a full-on severe recession or even Great Depression coming, a lot fewer people are going to have the dough to pay what we have become accustomed to.
The state of Oregon is going to be broke. Expect big cuts in their already-slim in-state student subsidy.
And, the foreign-student full tuition model is very likely dead.
I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of places, including UO, end up declaring financial exigency.
Hate to be so gloomy. But it looks to me like our world is ruined for quite a while.
Be careful everyone!
As an economist, the last thing the world needs is austerity right now. I plan, if I can, to keep every dollar I can and spend it all.
I hear there are some good deals on cruise vacations.
Haha. Right now spending it on online dance classes for my kids even though they kinda suck.
I’m sure they’re better than me, though that’s a low barre.
In-person summer classes do very badly anyway. The online summer courses are the only ones that have been filling. The real losses of students will come if fall courses can’t be held in person.
I agree, though I do not put it past the admin to cut summer online classes that would, in fact make money (on the ‘be seen to be doing something’ principle). I have skin in that game. I wonder if there is discussion of converting a proportion of fall offerings to the online format as one way to attract students who might prefer not to come back to Campus immediately. For all the rhetoric, the proportion of students who care about a putative quality gap between online and in-person formats is, I suspect, dwarfed by those who rather like the convenience of not going to class, not having to talk to real people, and (big one here) not taking proctored exams.
Assuming the reduction includes “overloads”, Schill’s 12% reduction, for 6 months, is a whopping $44,000. He still makes far more in a month than many classified staff make in a year, along with his free house and car.
Furlough the coaches. https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/columnist/dan-wolken/2020/04/02/coronavirus-cutting-college-coaches-pay-crisis-right-call-iowa-state/5116446002/
Schill said it himself: with no fans to fill arenas, sports are operating at a loss. So now is the time the University can free itself from the bondage and cut sports loose. If we have to cancel the actual University because the students aren’t coming, we surely can first cancel sports.
BTW, were is that board of trustees that some wanted so badly?
Good question, let’s find out:
From: WTH
Subject: BoT webcast
Date: April 4, 2020 at 8:02:04 PM PDT
To: Angela Wilhelms [email protected]
Hi Angela,
I’m wondering when the webcast of the Board approving the $12M Jumbotron will be posted at https://trustees.uoregon.edu/past-meetings.
Thanks,
Bill Harbaugh
UO Economics
Thanks to all you do, and keep up the good work! When the slashing starts, facts will be critical. Help us UO Matters, you are our only hope. Don’t give up. To turn a phrase, “I want to emphasize, in the strongest possible terms, this is not the time for that behavior.”
Emphasis noted. I will behave appropriately.