Compensation packages for university executives have skyrocketed in recent decades and the University of Hawaii’s regents must exercise increased care in assuring the right person for the job, at the right price. Thomas Apple, provost at the University of Delaware, is in line to become UH-Manoa’s next chancellor when the UH Board of Regents meets Thursday, but the decision should be neither hasty nor routine.

Current Chancellor Virginia Hinshaw was paid a salary of $337,672 a year at the end of her five-year term and will be paid nearly $300,000 for a 10-month sabbatical after her contract ends June 30. She is expected then to assume a tenured faculty position in the College of Natural Sciences and the John A. Burns School of Medicine. That’s a nifty parachute.

If approved, Apple would be paid $439,008 per year over a five-year contract, a considerable raise from his Delaware salary of $360,000 yearly. He was among the finalists earlier this year to fill a vacancy at the University of Vermont, which instead chose as president Thomas Sullivan from the University of Minnesota at a salary of $417,000 plus $30,000 of deferred compensation from each of the first three years.

The $102,000 bump-up in Apple’s proposed salary raises the question of what he is expected to, and can, deliver. The justification for this increase over the current pay scale must be made to the taxpayers of this state-run university, as well as to the student body, which has been forced to deal with rising tuitions. After all, there is considerable worry about the exorbitant costs of higher education and of "potential vulnerability" for universities trying to put lids on budgets and tuition.

UH President M.R.C. Greenwood, who is in charge of all campuses in the UH system, receives a contract that pays $475,000 yearly, plus a controversial $5,000 a month housing allowance. Even so, the salary seems to fit the national norm: The Chronicle of Higher Education reported last year that the median total compensation for college presidents in 2009-10 was $375,442, and the median total cost of employment was $440,487.

There is a "throw-your-hands-up-in-the-air sort of sentiment toward it," Ohio state Sen. Peggy B. Lehner told the Chronicle about educator salaries. "We recognize that to get the very best it’s a competitive process, so it’s the whole system across the country that is probably out of kilter."

The UH, though, needs to be especially vigilant that it gets what it pays for. It was not so long ago, in 2004, that the university got scorched trying to fire former president Evan Dobelle, then essentially had to pay him off to exit his lucrative contract.

As for Apple: He has emphasized to UH regents how Delaware U. is similar in important respects. In a presentation in Hawaii, he noted, "The University of Delaware is classified as a research university with very high research activity." Indeed, Delaware’s research infrastructure is reported to have expanded rapidly under his oversight.

Apple has been provost at Delaware since 2009, following four years as dean of arts and sciences and, prior to that beginning in 1981, dean and professor positions at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y., the University of Nebraska and Iowa State University.

At Delaware, Apple reportedly oversaw a new budgeting system that angered some faculty members and was blamed for the resignation of several deans. How such adversity might be detrimental to operations or beneficial to control expenses in Hawaii would remain to be seen, if he is hired.

Apple certainly has had an impressive career, but the UH regents must determine how he will fit at Manoa and how his performance justifies the salary. How he works with Greenwood, too, will be another major factor in how well this turns out for the campus and its students.