You Are Reading the Blog of a Chump

Remember the other day, when I was saying nice things about the presidents of Washington and Washington State Universities for refusing pay raises, or taking a pay cut? Man, what good examples!

Then I got this week's Chronice of Higher Education. Hey, guess which university presidents have the highest base pay in the country?

1. David P. Rosell, Delaware: $2,377,000
   
2. E. Gordon Gee, Ohio State: $775,000
   
3. Mark Emmert, University of Washington: $603,120
   
4. Elson S. Floyd, Washington State University: $600,000

#3 and #4 in the county. Not bad for government work. The pictures gets even rosier when you consider that Emmert is also #3 in the country for deferred compensation; he's got a cool $250,000 still coming to him, eventually.

So that made me go hmmm. Then I turend the page and met this headline:

For a Raise, Try Looking in the Evergreen State

....which goes on to cite the state of Washington as a great, great place to be a university president. There's a defense of the salaries paid, Emmert's especially, as being the price you have to pay to keep talent. I don't disagree.

But when the state is looking at a $5 billion dollar hole big salaries raise eyebrows, and those are big salaries.