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CUNY GIVES RAISES TO TOP EXECS

Presidents Get Up to 5.5%
Chancellor Goldstein Get 14% Raise 

by Peter Hogness and Karah  Woodward (From the November 2008 Clarion)

On September 22, the CUNY Board of Trustees approved pay increases for vice chancellors and college presidents that ranged from $7,067 to $14,235. Top executives now receive annual salaries of more than $200,000. 

Additionally Chancellor Matthew Goldstein received a $55,000 raise, a 14% increase that brings his yearly pay to $450,000.   The chancellor also receives a housing allowance and other compensation, which add more than $100,000 to his base pay.   

Vice chancellors received the most new money after Goldstein.  Most got five-figure increases, for pay hikes of 5 to 6%. The highest paid vice chancellor is Allan Dobrin, the University’s chief operating officer, whose $13,183 raise brings his salary to $276,847 per year. The next highest is Senior Vice Chancellor for Legal Affairs Frederick Schaffer, who is now paid $253,050 after a raise of $12,050.  The lowest-paid vice chancellor is VC for Student Development Garrie Moore, now earning   200,304 after a $7,704 boost. Moore was one of three vice chancellors to receive an additional $5,000 bonus, which is notadded to base pay. 

EXEC PAY 

College presidents received smaller raises than executives at 80th Street. Only three of 18 got more than $10,000, and in percentage terms all but a few got between 4 and 4.5%. 

At $273,061, Gregory Williams of City College remains CUNY’s highest-paid college president. His $14,235 raise, or 5.5% was by far the largest, in both percentage and absolute terms. 

Williams may in fact receive considerably more. In the past, he has also received a paycheck from the CUNY Research Foundation (RF). In the 2005-2006 academic year, the last period for which figures are publicly available, Williams was paid an additional $58,313 by the RF, plus $70,613 for “expense account andother allowances.” Though Williams sits on the RF board, the foundation has stated that he “did not receive compensation for serving on the board, but rather for [his] activities for City University of New York.”   

CUNY Director of Communications and Marketing Michael Arena declined to respond to questions from Clarion about  hether Williams or other top CUNY administrators currently receive extra pay from the RF. A portion of Chancellor Goldstein’s salary was similarly paid by the RF from 2003 until 2006, but all his pay now comes from tax-levy funds. 

Besides Williams, the two college presidents whose raises exceeded $10,000 were Kathleen Waldron of Baruch ($11,218, for a salary of $260,503) and Brooklyn College’s Christoph Kimmich ($10,534, for annual pay of $244, 614), a 4.5% increase inboth cases. 

The smallest increases among presidents went to Carolyn Williams of Bronx Community College ($7,067, with a $208,989 salary) Edison Jackson of Medgar Evers College ($7,461, annual pay of $220,641) and Dolores Fernández of Hostos CC ($7,733, for a new salary of $201,058). This amounts to raises of 3.5% for Williams and Jackson, and 4% for Fernández. 

ALMOST DOUBLED 

Since Goldstein was hired as chancellor in 1999 his pay has almost doubled, rising from $250,000 to $450,000 today. His other compensation, as reported last year by the Chronicle of Higher Education. includes a $90,000 housing allowance,  payment of “club dues,” and a car and driver. 

The latest increase came in two parts: a retroactive increase of $25,000 covering the period of October 1, 2007 through September 30, 2008, and another $30,000 raise effective 10/1/08. Goldstein’s last raise was in October 2006, while presidents and vice chancellors got their last increase in September 2007.   

All the raises were described as “performance-based,” and the board singled out the chancellor for special praise. “It is clear that Chancellor Goldstein’s performance continues to be of the highest rank,” the board stated. In explaining their decision, the trustees argued that the increase was “consistent with data from comparable institutions,” and cited the heads of Rutgers, University of Maryland, Columbia and NYU as examples. 

A full list of the raises for CUNY’s top executives is at the top of this page.

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