The Board of Trustees has approved a $25,000 salary increase and more than $300,000 bonus for Ohio State President E. Gordon Gee.
During a Friday meeting, the Board approved a 3 percent salary increase that will raise Gee’s base pay to $859,566.
Along with Gee’s annual performance evaluation, he was awarded a $333,812 bonus, 40 percent of his former pay rate.
Gee’s deferred compensation for fiscal year 2013 is $225,000.
Gee is the highest paid public university president in the nation, a title he doesn’t apologize for.
“You know I’m the highest paid university president in the country and I feel it’s a privilege to be a president here and I want to earn that salary every day. I think that I do,” Gee told The Lantern during a Sept. 10 interview in response to a question about his nearly $8 million travel budget.
In fiscal year 2011, Gee earned a nearly $2 million salary.
Gee’s total compensation of $1,992,221 was comprised of a base pay of $814,157, along with $881,278 in deferred compensation and $296,786 of bonus pay, which the university said is not distributed from public funds.
Gee has in the past donated a portion of his salary back to the university, and university spokesman Jim Lynch said in an email that Gee will “continue to allocate funds toward his $1 million scholarship-endowment commitment. Until that endowment is complete, he will continue to fund current Gee Scholars on campus.”
Lynch said Gee plans to establish education funds for his twin granddaughters, who were born earlier this month.
