Tuition is not the only thing rising at Ohio State. Salaries have increased 3.5 percent from last year.
Ohio State’s academic plan was designed to bring the university into the top tier of academic institutions. In an effort to recruit and retain top faculty staff, one of its priorities is to bring faculty salaries up to a level comparable to their peers at other large, public universities.
After last year’s rise, faculty’s salaries were 1.7 percent below the average.
“After we examine the results of this year’s salary increase, we expect faculty salaries to be even closer to the benchmark average,” said Larry Lewellen, Associate Vice President of the Office of Human Resources.
Lewellen said increases in tuition and faculty salaries are justified.
“We do have to pay more money to replacement people, to keep things competitive,” Lewellen said. “But other than that, the leaders get the same salary increases as faculty and staff.”
“I want to make clear to students that we obtain all of our information on pay increases from a benchmark of institutions,” Lewellen said. “We stay close to what other public institutions are paying. We try to take an average. We take a very responsible market based approach.”
“It makes sense to raise the salaries to attract top people,” said Emily Scott, sophomore. “When people are looking for work they look for a job that pays the best.”
With a salary of $670,000, Dr. Fred Sanfilippo, Senior Vice president of Health Sciences and Dean of the College of Medicine and Public Health, is OSU’s highest paid university employee.
In 2000, Sanfilippo started at $450,000 and was charged with the task of healing OSU’s health system. Since then, he has presided over a large financial turnaround.
He cleared a $43 million debt and has focused on improving patient care, medical education and research opportunities.
Sanfilippo’s salary is paid mostly out of separate medical funds and is typical of CEOs of large academic universities.
Not everyone is pleased with the salary increases.
State. Rep. Jim McGregor (R-Gahanna) has introduced two bills designed to cut the costs of publicly supported agencies.
The first bill would freeze the wage and benefits of public executives and employees who receive and spend public funds, whose salaries exceed that of the Governor at $130,000. According to McGregor this bill would save over $100 million per year.
“Our universities feel that they have the freedom to skyrocket tuition when Ohio faces a $5 billion deficit they will have to deal with next year by increasing the sales tax.” McGregor said. “It’s unfathomable.”
The second bill would empower our Board of Regents to implement its findings in regard to public universities.
“The Board of Regents can move incrementally in a time of harvest to provide guidance instead of discipline, but in a small economy someone needs to step in,” McGregor said.
“The reason for the increase is the inability of the state to provide as much funding.” Lewellen said.
He added that numbers on employee salaries are open to everyone and salaries are under scrutiny.
“The faculty compensations and benefits committee of the university senate periodically asks for reports including salary and the number of positions,” Lewellen said. “It is an extremely responsible compensation strategy.”
