Pay hikes due most top brass inside UH
“While it’s commendable that people are willing to work for what some would argue is a submarket rate, in the long run that’s probably not a sustainable proposition.” - Randy Moore, University of Hawaii regent
Most of the University of Hawaii’s more than 200 executives are eligible for merit-based raises totaling approximately $800,000 under criteria approved Thursday by a Board of Regents committee.
University of Hawaii President David Lassner on Sept. 1 proposed using annual performance evaluation ratings to expend $1.1 million available this year for salary adjustments for the university’s 252 executive and managerial employees.
The positions are excluded from collective bargaining but attached to the bargaining unit representing faculty, and include vice presidents and associate vice presidents, chancellors and vice chancellors, deans, associate deans and program directors.
The funds were appropriated specifically for salary adjustments for these excluded employees, and any unused money would be returned to the state general fund, UH officials said.
“This is not coming out of tuition increases or any fees generated by the University of Hawaii,” university spokesman Dan Meisenzahl said Thursday.
Instead of across-the-board increases for the group, Lassner sought tiered increases tied to each employee’s annual evaluation rating. There are four possible ratings — outstanding, superior, satisfactory and less than satisfactory — on the annual evaluations, which include reviews from supervisors, self-assessments and anonymous feedback from peers and subordinates.
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Under the guidelines approved Thursday by the regents’ Personnel Affairs Committee, those rated satisfactory or higher would receive a $2,000 boost to their base salary; those rated superior would get an additional 1 percent increase; and employees rated outstanding would receive another 2 percent raise. Anyone rated less than satisfactory would not be eligible for a raise.
“In the aggregate, this methodology results in an overall average increase of approximately 3.5 percent, subject to variation based on performance and internal equity,” Lassner wrote Sept. 1 in a memorandum to regents Chairwoman Jan Sullivan.
“That’s the intent of the administration, to reward or to acknowledge meritorious performance,” Jan Gouveia, system vice president for administration, told the committee. “It is not an across-the-board, which is what was done with their counterparts.”
The faculty union, the University of Hawaii Professional Assembly, negotiated across-the-board 4 percent annual raises in its 2015-17 contract. Meanwhile, an arbitration panel late last year awarded 4 percent annual raises and a one-time $2,500 bonus for administrative, professional and technical — or APT — employees at UH, who are covered by the Hawaii Government Employees Association.
Meisenzahl said UH is still determining how many executives fall into the various categories for the tiered raises, but said that most would be eligible for an adjustment. Still, some employees might follow the lead of the senior management and decline their increases, as some deans have in past years.
“Not everyone is getting a salary adjustment,” Meisenzahl said. “You have to have earned it. But the final numbers are still a little fluid at this point.”
Gouveia said members of the senior management team — the seven system vice presidents and the three chancellors of the four-year campuses — have chosen to follow Lassner’s lead and forgo any potential salary increases. (Regents recently gave Lassner a positive evaluation but at his request did not consider a salary adjustment. Lassner, who earns $375,000 as president, made the same request last year.)
Regent Randy Moore, co-vice chairman of the board, said he was concerned by the move.
“As to the officers’ willingness to forgo their increases, I’m very impressed, No. 1,” Moore said. “No. 2, actually, I’m slightly concerned, because most of those folks are at the very low end of their salary ranges. … While it’s commendable that people are willing to work for what some would argue is a submarket rate, in the long run that’s probably not a sustainable proposition.”
With those executives taken out, Gouveia said, the increases altogether could cost somewhere between $750,000 and $800,000.
With the methodology approved, the university will finalize individual raise amounts and seek approval later this month from the full board for employees who report directly to the Board of Regents or the president. Under board policy, salary adjustments for other executives would not require board approval.
If approved, the increases would be retroactive to July 1.
Last year UH paid out approximately $1 million in raises for 182 of the 221 executive and managerial employees on payroll at the time. Those increases represented the first raises in seven years for the group.
21 responses to “Pay hikes due most top brass inside UH”
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When UH goes to the next level in education, then we talk raises.
No UH bureaucrat has done anything to deserve any pay raise. They have done nothing to lower the cost of education, reduce the maintenance backlog, increase the quality of a UH education. Done nothing to increase the ranking of UH when magazines like US News & World Reports, others, rate all the higher learning institutions. UH Manoa has consistently ranked in the bottom 10%.
If anything pay reductions are in order. Just because a bureaucrat comes to work every day and pushes paper, hours on email, does not mean any real work has been accomplished.
Totally undeserved pay raises are just one of thousands of daily failures at Money Pit UH Manoa, why UH Manoa always rates in the bottom 10 percent of similar institutions. Reducing the bloated, deadwood, bureaucracy by 50% would be a great start. Same with moving all new hires to a Roth 401k plan.
While UH Manoa has quite a bit of work to do in terms of infrastructure management, academics, (there’s a fair amount of inconsistency among departments, some being quite good, others not so much) and availability of course offerings and other opportunities, it doesn’t help the argument or add to the discussion to fabricate data. This is especially so when the numbers can be checked with a couple of clicks. According to US News and World Report’s college and university rankings 2016, UHM ranks 161 of 280 of all universities in the US and 88 of 119 public universities. Not outstanding nor what we would like to see but not even close to the bottom 10%.
There is real data out there that provides valid information about where and how improvements might be made. It’s unnecessary to make it up.
UH Manoa has never been a leader, always a follower. The “Wonder Blunder” the recent massive end of contract payoffs to substandard UH hires, supporting paid sabbaticals to staff deadwood, over staffing, massive maintenance backlog, etc, has proven there is no real professional management at UH Manoa.
Rookie posters make the mistake of only looking at a single year ranking in a single area versus taking a multiyear approach to see trends, past history. Also must consider value for the money, four-year graduation rate, financial aid, debt on graduation, how many graduates find jobs after graduation, their salary. Look at multiple rating sources to get the real picture. Example – In 2014, the Washington Post ranked National Universities, UHM was not even mentioned.
In 2016, USN&WR also ranked UH Manoa 161 out of 280 National Universities and 220 out of 268 in High School Counselor Rankings. 88 out of 119 top public schools. (There were multiple ties, meaning higher numbers ahead of UHM)
UH Manoa does not rank in the top 100 colleges and Universities. Forbes ranked 660 colleges, UHM ranked 362.
Do your research.
localguy: You are absolutely correct. This latest round of “nest feathering” is disgusting. I hope the legislature continues to show its disgust for UH, especially UH Mānoa. Start by getting rid of all the leeches in admin.
Tied to performance? That just means if your boss likes you. Obviously performance can’t be that great at UH, given the current state of affairs.
The scuttlebutt is that UH “cleaned house” over the past two years, so the new executives might be in a different league from the old ones. But then, this is Hawaii so is there really THAT much difference between one government worker and another?
UH didn’t clean house. It just moved the scum around. It got rid of the bully Dasenbrock but only after a year of stalling an investigation into his hostile and retaliatory behavior! Benham, who has been a dismal failure as a dean at UH, is now short listed for the Chancellor’s position at UH West Oahu. Go figure!
Just another example of what is wrong with UH and all these highly paid executives. Just because some have not received any pay raises for a few years
is not any kind of justification for being given a raise especially given the high salaries they already receive.
What really offends me is UH spokesman, Dan Meisenzahal’s statement that the money for the raises is not coming out of tuition increases or any fees generated by UH.
Then tell me, just where is the money coming from. Maybe from the money, UH asks the legislature to appropriate to them every year, which is ultimately provided
by the tax payer, I would think, Mr Meisenzahal.’s
Regent Randy Moore who is quoted in this story and who supports the raise for these UH executives can hardly be considered to be objective on this matter being
that he was a high muck muck former executive with Castle & Cook, Molokai Ranch, Kaneohe Ranch and DOE Assistant Superintendent for School Facilities and
Support Services.
I hope Moore gets a pay raise so that he can get some urgently needed cosmetic dental surgery. Seriously!!
First of all, there are too many executives. Why in the world do you need associate vice presidents, vice chancellors, vice deans, etc., etc.? Being an economics major the term used for employing these relatively useless executives is called “featherbedding”. That is one thing UH excels at.
University Administrators and Professors are only into this profession for money. They don’t bother to teach and in fact have private jobs which they spend a lo of their hours onto earn even more money.
I wholeheartedly support educators and feel that the K-12 teachers are despicably under paid. Do people realize that it took a K-12 teacher to groom a student to be capable to enter college? Without a solid K-12 education, colleges would not be in existence. At the university level being paid $800k is a bit much and with educators in the DOE topping out at $80k with 35+ years of service is jus not equitable.
oops…$375K not $800K
Do you recall the article a few weeks ago that said that Hawaii students did very poorly on the ACT tests and showed that most of them are not ready to go to college?
You get what you pay for and nothing worthwhile is, cheap. Education is critical for our future success.
but are the administrators critical for education?
UH Execs don’t deserve a pay raise; sorry to say that since I know some of them but they are already compensated well for the results they are achieving (or not achieving).
Why now and for what reason? I know how easy it is for them to spend our hard earned tax payers money – even then the timing is bad and it’s the wrong thing to do.
where is allie’s comment he/she is still going to U.H.
This is beyond shameful!