NEWS

Big money: CSU leadership raises outpace whole

Nick Coltrain
nickcoltrain@coloradoan.com
Colorado State University students listen as Chancellor and President Tony Frank addresses a question during an open forum at the Lory Student Center in Fort Collins on Jan. 29.

Salaries of the seven administrators closest to CSU President Tony Frank increased by an average 3.38 percent in 2015, nearly a percentage point more than the average raise received by university’s entire faculty and staff roster.

The seven who report to Frank received an average dollar increase four times greater than the university average. They all were making six-figures already, making even standard raises reflect higher dollar figures.

Even when that pool is broadened to include all 21 vice presidents and deans listed on the organizational chart under Provost Rick Miranda’s purview at the time of Colorado State University’s annual salary increase exercise, the percentage increase still outstrips that of the university as a whole by a half point.

HOW WE DID IT: Digitizing CSU's salary exercise 

The raises were awarded as the Fort Collins campus grappled with a gender pay equity issue, a community divided over plans to build an on-campus stadium, the resignation of faculty council executive committee members over what they described as an administration tone-deaf to faculty opinions, and ever-increasing tuition and dwindling state funding.

“Any evidence that administrators are able to secure higher raises for themselves than for others at the university does not seem very fair,” CSU economics professor Alexandra Bernasek, part of the group that resigned from the executive committee, told the Coloradoan.

Figures come from the 2015-16 Salary Increase Exercise for Academic Faculty and Administrative-Professional Staff, which is housed in printed form at the Morgan Library on CSU’s campus.

A Coloradoan examination of the exercise shows this group closest to Frank is an outlier among the university’s highest-paid employees: The 100 highest-paid employees who received raises last year saw an average raise of 2.53 percent, roughly in line with the average 2.47 percent raise awarded across CSU’s entire faculty and staff.

A look at raises received by the seven Colorado State University employees closest to Chancellor and President Tony Frank on a 2014 organizational chart of university administration.

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The examination follows a CSU statistics professor’s discovery that the institution may have been systematically, if inadvertently, paying female full professors less than equally qualified male colleagues — a revelation that led to a quarter of all female full professors receiving raises, along with the formation of a special committee to examine pay equity at CSU across demographics.

Bernasek, who authored the resignation letter for herself and several colleagues from the executive faculty committee of the CSU Faculty Council, called the appearance of higher salary increases for those near the top of the university’s organizational chart “an important and relevant question, especially in a time of tight budgets and when for years faculty and staff receive minimal to no salary increases and students pay higher and higher tuition.”

SEARCHABLE DATABASE100 highest paid CSU employees

“My own view of the apparent disparity in salary increases between administration and faculty and staff is that it reflects the corporatization of higher education and its explicit belief that those at the top are somehow more valuable than those at the bottom of the university,” Bernasek said in an email.

Admin costs rise nationally

CSU’s practice of providing top-tier administrators greater raises than what is received by their rank-and-file peers isn’t necessarily a surprise to Higher Education Researcher John Barnshaw of the American Association of University Professors.

“Over the past five years, it’s become increasingly common,” Barnshaw said, adding, “We don’t really have hard and fast numbers for just how quickly it’s expanded because the senior administrative ranks doesn’t have a strict definition; it’s not like the military.”

The 2014 AAUP report on the economic status of higher education professionals shows that administrator pay, controlled for inflation, has far outpaced that of professors between 1978 and 2014, increasing 75 percent for presidents and more than 50 percent for chief academic officer and chief business officer-type positions, compared to just more than 20 percent for full professors and assistant professors, and less for associate professors.

CORAKefalas introduces open records update

Barnshaw said similar trends can be observed across sectors, whether in Wall Street or other public institutions, and can largely be traced back to sample size. When looking at a smaller pool of people, such as top-tier administrators, a handful of outliers can push the midpoint up, and thus drive up the median salary.

CSU Provost and Executive Vice President Rick Miranda also noted that the seven positions evaluated by the Coloradoan constitute an exceptionally small sample size, warning that raises received by those in top administrative positions paint a skewed picture of CSU practices. There are thousands of employees across CSU’s colleges and departments, each with different experiences, disciplines and responsibilities.

“The full organizational leadership chart already is — given the number of employees at the university — a small population,” Miranda wrote. “But shrinking that small population even further to create an artificial subset for the purpose of your comparison doesn’t provide an accurate portrayal.”

The seven examined were closest to Frank on an organizational chart of university vice presidents and deans that was in effect during the most recent salary increase exercise.

CSU policy is designed to reward high-performing individuals, within the constraints of the salary pool and at managerial discretion, Miranda said. He noted that three of the seven individuals highlighted by the Coloradoan received raises of less than the university average.

That includes himself, Vice President of Engagement/Director of Extension Services Louis Swanson and Vice President of Operations Amy Parsons. Parsons received a 2 percent increase while Miranda and Swanson received raises of just more than 2 percent.

Miranda and Parsons in particular have received significant dollar-amount raises in the recent past: Since the 2010-11 academic year, Miranda’s pay has increased by $40,000, to $340,000, the equivalent of just more than 2 percent annually. Parsons’ had increased by $68,000, to $318,000, before the $24,000 bump she received with her promotion to CSU System executive vice chancellor.

Among the four other administrators to receive raises in the fiscal 2015-16 exercise, raises ranged from 3.6 percent for Vice President of External Relations Tom Milligan, bringing his annual salary to $255,000, to 5.25 percent for Frank’s Chief of Staff Mark Gill, bringing his salary to $178,000.

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Among pools of employees, “there will often be some who receive more and others who receive less,” Miranda wrote, as supervisors assess productivity, merit and equity issues.

Miranda said the university uses raises as a tool to recognize and retain high-achieving employees. Of CSU’s faculty and staff at large, 124 received raises of 10 percent or more, for an average increase of $9,643, which could be attributed to a variety of factors, including promotions. Another 288 employees received raises of between 5 percent and 10 percent.

Just more than half of the more than 4,800 employees considered in the salary increase exercise received raises of between 2 percent and 2.5 percent.

Beyond its equity investigation, CSU is taking steps to increase the raises professors receive when promoted. Today, an assistant professor promoted to associate professor is given a 5 percent increase, and associate professors moving to full professorship receive raises of 10 percent.

Miranda said university leaders are pursuing a policy of giving professors a 10 percent increase for both promotional steps.

Views vary on CSU’s salary practices

Mary Stromberger, chair of the CSU faculty council, was hesitant to say what was appropriate when comparing raises received by those at the top of CSU’s organizational chart to those received across the university — there are too many variables involved and she wasn’t familiar with how dean- and vice president-level raises are handled.

“There is huge variation within the faculty/staff group in terms of experience, rank, time in rank, as well as other factors that determine both salary level ... and percentage raises,” Stromberger told the Coloradoan via email. “However, within the cabinet/deans member group, the members would be more similar to each other in terms of years of experience, level of achievement, performance metrics, etc.; and of course they tend to come from the more senior, more experienced part of the population.”

She also noted work being done on equity issues in general at CSU, with the goal of preventing discriminatory pay practices. CSU convened a committee last year to revise salary equity reviews. An initial 2015 review of full professors, a targeted category after a statistics professor warned of possible gender-based pay disparity, led to raises for 59 professors. Thirty-one male professors received an average adjustment of $4,787, while 28 females received an average adjustment of $5,214.

“It’s not a perfect process,” Stromberger wrote, “but CSU is working to make it better.”

Jason Sydoriak, the outgoing president of the Associated Students of CSU, questioned what raises received by CSU’s top administrators said about the university’s priorities, even if they represent only $54,000 of the more than $8.9 million in raises awarded last year.

“Budgets may be just numbers, but it’s also about values and this makes it look like they value administration above all else,” he said.

Sydoriak, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran and political science and economics major, took the helm of the student government around the time reports of gender-based pay inequity began to surface at CSU. He said he initially had faith in the administration to handle the issue swiftly and fairly, but subsequent actions by the university have since dampened that confidence.

Lingering concerns such as Sydoriak’s led the Coloradoan to examine compensation at the university in late 2015. CSU and its lawyers fought a Coloradoan request under the state’s open records law for a digital copy of a 145-page, spiral bound report detailing the salaries and raises for 4,850 faculty and staff that CSU makes available in the Morgan Library. Similar documentation that CSU provides digitally or is online lacks some of the information included in the printed report, such as a employee names.

In a letter to the editor published in the Coloradoan, CSU spokesperson Mike Hooker said not providing the information digitally was done to protect employee privacy. In providing the salary exercise information in printed format, CSU meets the requirements of state open records law.

To further understand the data presented in the salary exercise, the Coloradoan recreated the printed report in digital form.

As a result of the issue, state Sen. John Kefalas, D-Fort Collins, introduced a bill this legislative session to amend the Colorado Open Records Act to require that public entities make digital files of public records available in their original format. The bill has gone through several revisions to ensure things like protected information wouldn’t be inadvertently released. The bill will have a hearing Wednesday in the Senate State, Veterans and Military Affairs committee.

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Sydoriak served on the Coloradoan’s editorial board while that body debated its stance on the issue of whether public agencies such as CSU should be required to release information in digital format.

“What is the reason to throw such a fit over this CORA stuff?” he asked. “Seeing these actions has definitely minimized my confidence that the administration is doing everything it can to make pay equitable on the campus.”

Of the university’s 100 highest-paid employees, 11 individuals did not receive raises via the exercise, including football coach Mike Bobo and Frank, whose salaries are dictated by contract. Twenty-six of the 100 lowest-paid employees did not receive raises as part of the exercise, due to a change of job duties, being a new hire, or some other action affecting base salary rate that predated the exercise.

OPEN RECORDSCSU does disservice to public with lack of transparency

For comparison, the 100 highest-paid faculty and staff at CSU earn an average of about $246,000 per year. The top 100 employees at the University of Colorado — excluding those at the medical school, a specialty that typically commands much higher pay — earn an average salary of $258,000.

CU’s online salary database, which also does not include names of employees, did not include men’s basketball coach Tad Boyle, who makes about $1.49 million per year, or football coach Mike MacIntyre, who makes more than $2 million annually.

Raises for CSU’s top seven

A look at raises received by the seven Colorado State University employees closest to Chancellor and President Tony Frank on a 2014 organizational chart of university administration:

Brett Anderson, vice president for university advancement: $11,052, or 4.35 percent. 2015-16 salary: $265,000

Mary Ontiveros, vice president for diversity: $7,744, or 4.19 percent. 2015-16 salary: $192,500

Rick Miranda, provost and executive vice president: $6,875, or 2.06 percent. 2015-16 salary: $340,000

Louis Swanson, vice president of engagement/director of extension: $4,437 or 2.14 percent. 2015-16 salary: $212,000

Tom Milligan, vice president of external relations: $9,000, or 3.66 percent. 2015-16 salary: $255,000

Amy Parsons, vice president of university operations*: $6,253 or 2 percent. 2015-16 salary: $318,878.

Mark Gill, chief of staff to President Tony Frank: $8,871 or 5.25 percent. 2015-16 salary: $178,000.

Note: John Morris, interim athletic director listed on the August 2014 organizational chart, was excluded from this analysis due to his interim status. He was paid $200,592 and did not receive a raise as part of the salary increase exercise. He has since left CSU to be the athletics director at Tufts University.

*Since this salary equity study was published in July 2015, Parsons was moved to the CSU System office. She makes $342,000 to serve as Frank’s executive vice chancellor.

10 highest paid CSU/CSU System employees

Mike Bobo, head football coach: $1.35 million

Larry Eustachy, head men’s basketball coach: $946,764

Tony Frank, CSU president and CSU System chancellor: $575,000*

Will Friend, football offensive coordinator: $500,000

Ajay Menon, dean of College of Agricultural Sciences: $385,000

Amy Parsons, CSU System executive vice chancellor: $342,000

Rick Miranda, CSU provost and executive vice president: $340,000

Ron Sega*, professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering: $339,600

Bill Ritter*, director of the Center for the New Energy Economy: $323,000

Mark Stetter, dean of the College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences: $319,300

Notes: CSU employee salaries come from the 2015-16 Salary Increase Exercise, published in June 2015. CSU System figures come from the CSU System Office payroll roster, provided to the Coloradoan in December 2015.

*Frank’s salary includes that from CSU ($475,000) and the CSU System ($100,000); Sega is former Under Secretary of the Air Force and an astronaut;Ritter was governor of Colorado from 2007-2011.

Growth in non-faculty

An American Association of University Professors report from 2014, dubbed “Losing Focus: The Annual Report on the Economic Status of the Profession,” highlights 369 percent growth in the number of full-time nonfaculty professionals on college campuses between 1975 and 2011, and 286 percent growth in part-time faculty. In that same time period, full-time tenured and tenure-track faculty positions increased by 23 percent.

Mike Hooker, a CSU spokesperson, said CSU data extending back 10 years showed growth in faculty members of 26 percent — 1,170 to 1,474 — while administrative professionals, which includes accountants, researchers, marketing assistants and other non-administrators — have grown in ranks from 1,651 to 2,659, or 61 percent.

Some of that disparity is due to positions formerly identified as state classified being redefined as CSU administrative professionals. Hooker also noted record growth of CSU’s student population, which includes more diverse populations and needs.

“This context is exactly why, locally at CSU and nationally, there have been significant increases in the student support services (which are considered non-academic) such as student health, services for veterans, diversity support, tutoring options, academic advising, etc.,” Hooker said in an email to the Coloradoan.