University Times

In an op-ed piece published in the Jan. 24 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Pennsylvania Supreme Court Chief Justice Ralph J. Cappy defended the compensation packages that he and other Pitt trustees recently awarded to the University’s senior administrators.

Cappy wrote that Chancellor Mark A. Nordenberg himself had argued eloquently, year after year, against such substantial raises and bonuses for Pitt executives, for fear that they could be “misconstrued and damage important campus relationships that had been established over the course of many years.”

But trustees overruled Nordenberg, according to Cappy.

Picking up on Cappy’s article, Faculty Assembly on Jan. 28 discussed — but ultimately voted 7-6 to table until its next meeting — a resolution urging Pitt trustees to “give greater heed in the future to the chancellor’s concerns, as reported in the media, about very large increases to himself and other top University officers in a time of severe campus budgetary problems.”

As originally drafted by dental medicine professor John Baker, the resolution called on Faculty Assembly to “censure” the trustees, but other Assembly members said that was going too far.

“The word ‘censure’ should be reserved for very serious and weighty matters,” said English professor Phil Wion.

Assembly members considered alternative verbs — “admonish,” “decry,” “criticize” — before agreeing to the final wording written by Nathan Hershey of the Graduate School of Public Health.

Baker said he didn’t begrudge Pitt officers their 5.4 to 13.9 percent salary raises and $50,000-$75,000 annual bonuses for remaining at the University. “But the trustees’ letters justifying these increases don’t bear up to scrutiny,” Baker maintained.

Based on Nordenberg’s total compensation of $377,720 (including base salary and other compensation) for the 2001 fiscal year, Pitt’s chancellor ranked 23rd in the latest Chronicle of Higher Education survey of chief executives’ compensation at 131 U.S. public research universities, noted Baker.

“For most of the chief executives included in that survey, the Chronicle used 2002-03 compensation, but for Chancellor Nordenberg it was 2000-01 data. His new compensation package moves him up to No. 7,” Baker said. “I bring this up because the Board of Trustees said that one of their reasons [for boosting the chancellor’s compensation] was that Chancellor Nordenberg was falling behind his peers.”

In recent letters to the University Times and other publications, Pitt trustees and administrators reported that, despite the fact that Pitt’s salary increase pool was just 3.5 percent this year, 246 faculty received raises greater than 10 percent and 149 got raises of greater than 15 percent; 880 staff members got raises of 5 percent or more and 238 staff received increases of 10 percent or more.

“The problem with those numbers is, they don’t tell you what the base salary was for those employees who received the high percentage raise,” Baker said. “It’s very easy to give a high percentage raise to someone who has a low salary to begin with. But our top executives were already very well paid.”

Wion, who chairs the University Senate’s budget policies committee, pointed out that the numbers of employees who received double-digit raises included people who got promotions — and who therefore should have received substantial raises commensurate to their new titles, ranks and duties.

With Pitt facing a hefty increase in its health insurance premiums and level funding, at best, from the state, “we’re told it’s going to be a very bad year,” Baker said. “But who’s the year bad for? It’s not a bad year for our top executives. We already know they’re doing extremely well. It’s a bad year for the rest of us.”

—Bruce Steele