News reports in April said Louisiana’s commissioner of higher education, Sally Clausen, would be cutting her pay by more than half for the fiscal year that begins on July 1. What Ms. Clausen didn’t tell reporters, or even the university system’s Board of Regents, was that she had quietly retired one day in the previous August and had been rehired a day later, a step that allowed her to receive a lump-sum payout of more than $90,000 for unused vacation and sick leave, according to The Times-Picayune.
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6 Responses to Louisiana’s Higher-Education Commissioner Gets Major Payday for One-Day Retirement
alan_kors - May 20, 2010 at 4:23 pm
Ah, government…. ah, higher education….
11185500 - May 20, 2010 at 9:27 pm
Payment for unused vacation isn’t unusual, and is defensible. But payment for unused sick leave is both unprecedented and indefensible in my experience (as a twice retired academic administrator). The experience of other Chronicle readers would be of interest on this matter, including whether this is a standard practice in Louisiana.
cwinton - May 21, 2010 at 1:12 am
I have to disagree with post #2. For the institution I retired from, faculty accumulate sick leave, but receive no vacation leave. Sick leave and vacation leave may have different rationales but both are earned. Those of us who schedule surgery, for example, to occur outside of the 9 month contract period so as to not interfere with classes or other professional obligations, are hardly different from the administrator accumulating vacation leave (and in my experience administrators often don’t take leave when indulging in long weekends, presumably because they often are obligated to attend weekend university functions on other occasions). I’m happy to say I was reimbursed for unused sick leave up to a prescribed limit (although certainly not at the level of $90,000), but then I actually retired. I think the issue here is not that Ms. Clausen was reimbursed for leave, but that she didn’t actually retire from her position.
dchance - May 21, 2010 at 7:16 am
As a Louisiana higher education faculty member, I should be hurt by this, but I’m not. I think almost anybody in that circumstance would have done this retire-rehire thing but not many people would have voluntarily given up more than half of their salary. She also agreed to donate pension payments received while working to charity. Dr. Clausen is a rare example of an educational administrator with some class.
a_voice - May 21, 2010 at 12:47 pm
We read things like this or worse every once in a while. Then, we wonder about public support for higher education. Most taxpayer Janes and Joes out there would have no sympathy for this behavior. Modest compensation for unused vacation is common, but not high compensation. And why should an organization pay employees for not getting sick?
zagros - May 22, 2010 at 1:10 am
Go and READ the Times-Picayne article and you learn that once she was rehired (and before this story broke) she wanted to:1) “reimburse them every thing they gave me in annual and sick and compensation”2) “wanted her salary reduced by $70,000, effective Feb. 1″ specifically to provide back most of the money that had been accumlated (this salary reduction was never implemented)3) will be voluntarily reducing her salary from $425,000 to $199,000 — a reduction that is far in excess of what she received in lump-sum payment4) “was informed that she could not rescind her retirement, which entitles her to a $12,212 monthly pension starting Aug. 1″ (she starts getting this pension 1 year after her initial request to retire due to rules in place at the State Pension plan which prohibit collection of retirement for those who return to work for the state for a period of one year).5) plans to “donate any pension payments to charity as long as she is working as commissioner.”6) requested on February 19th “that her salary be cut by $79,000 and that her housing and car allowances be eliminated beginning July 1. That would have brought her pay down to $298,000 a year, plus the pension.”7) requested on April 4th to have “her pay reduced to $199,000 a year “in light of this last, unexpected budget reduction.”The Board of Regents have nothing to say about this since we are really discussing a state law that entitled her to the payments in the first place. Besides, it isn’t like she wouldn’t have received the money LATER when she retired completely from state service. Finally, she should be commended for her actions to try to save the state money. By my calculations, her salary reductions will MORE than compensate the state for the lump-sum payment. Now it is true that she did state that she “has not reimbursed the state for the sick leave and vacation time, as she indicated she planned to do” but really folks, if you take a $200,000+ pay cut, you effectively have paid back the state for $90,000 paid out for sick leave and vacation leave.