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Amid Budget Cuts, a President Is Promised a Hefty Raise

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By Jennifer Jacobson

On the same day that trustees at Florida International University slashed millions from the university's budget, they promised the president an $83,000 raise.

Public institutions in Florida have been forced to cut back as a result of a $1-billion reduction in state spending for higher education. In December, trustees at Florida International approved $12-million in budget cuts, or about 3 percent of the university's budget. At the same time, the trustees announced plans to raise the salary of the university's president, Modesto A. Maidique, to $285,000 from $202,000. The board put a few conditions on the 41-percent raise: Mr. Maidique won't receive it until November and then only if the economy has recovered and if Gov. Jeb Bush, a Republican, has lifted the freeze he placed on pay increases for state employees earning $90,000 or more.

The board's timing in announcing the president's raise alongside budget cuts is, to say the least, unusual. Armando M. Codina, the board chairman, calls it "unfortunate."

In July, before the recession kicked in, a panel of the board commissioned an independent salary survey that was presented to the trustees in December. It found that "our president, given what we consider his exemplary performance and tenure, was well underpaid," Mr. Codina says. In fact, eight university employees earn more than he does. Trustees knew they couldn't afford to grant Mr. Maidique an immediate raise, Mr. Codina says, so "we made a decision to go ahead and put it on the table."

Asked if he is concerned that giving the president such a big raise during a period of retrenchment would anger faculty members, Mr. Codina says he is always "concerned and sensitive" to faculty reaction. "It is my belief that they understand my concern about paying market salaries to our president and our faculty," he says. "I believe they understand and appreciate the commitment of our board."

Faculty reaction to the raise has been mixed, says Howard B. Rock, chairman of the Faculty Senate and a professor of history. "Some of them are very unhappy. Others share my view, which is that the president has been here 15 years" and deserves the raise. But, adds Mr. Rock, so do the professors. "Salaries have been so low for so long that some faculty members see this as administrators' getting a raise and they don't," he says. "So they don't really have much hope. I have a more optimistic view that the two will be combined." The average salary of a full professor at the university last year was $72,300, while the average for an assistant professor was $45,800.

The board's salary survey recommended that Mr. Maidique should be paid $200,000 to $300,000. It would have been dishonest, Mr. Codina says, to have held onto that information without telling Mr. Maidique, who, after 15 years of service, is the longest-serving president in the Florida system. "We chose to be upfront."

And in the process they one-upped their fellow Florida institutions.

At $285,000, Mr. Maidique's salary would be $37,100 more than the $247,900 that Talbot D'Alemberte earns as president of Florida State University, and $28,200 more than the $246,800 salary that is budgeted for Charles E. Young, the president of the University of Florida -- the two flagship institutions of the Florida system. (Mr. Young works a reduced schedule and is paid only nine-tenths of his full salary, or $231,120.)

Mr. Codina insists that Mr. D'Alemberte's salary did not influence the board's decision on what to pay Mr. Maidique, nor does he think it will create some sort of bidding war for presidents between the two institutions. "We have to operate our own university," he says. "I can't worry about whether somebody else is underpaid or overpaid. I only do what I think is right for our president. We think this is a reward for his performance and tenure."

Nonetheless, Mr. Codina thinks the president of Florida State ought to make more than the president of Florida International, since Florida State has more programs and more students. But the main issue, he says, is that presidents of Florida institutions in general make less than their peers in other parts of the country. "That to me is just bad policy," he says.

The actions of Florida International's board will not influence how much Florida State decides to pay its own president, says John Thrasher, chairman of Florida State's Board of Trustees. "What they did has no impact on us," he says.

Mr. Thrasher says the board is pleased with Mr. D'Alemberte's performance, but he won't speculate on how the trustees will reward him once they complete a formal evaluation of his work in September. Mr. D'Alemberte's salary was set by the statewide Board of Regents, but last spring, lawmakers dismantled that body and allowed Florida's institutions to establish their own governing boards to hire presidents, set their pay levels, and, if need be, fire them.

Because the boards are now independent, Mr. Thrasher says, the trustees will come up with "what they think is a fair salary range for their president." Nobody's salary, he says, will be identical.

Asked whether Mr. D'Alemberte should earn more than Mr. Maidique, Mr. Thrasher says he likes to think of Florida State as a flagship university: "The FSU president ought to be paid commensurate with the responsibilities. If it means making more than what the president of FIU makes, so be it. But we're not making a value judgment on that right now."