Colleges feel effect of pay cap
By ANITA KUMAR, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published July 24, 2003
ORLANDO - A new law capping the amount of state money that can be paid to university presidents is now in effect, even if the presidents have long-term contracts, university officials were told Wednesday.
That means most of Florida's universities - including the University of South Florida - will have to dig into private pockets to pay their presidents the salaries they were promised.
Appalled by a recent round of pay increases, legislators this spring approved a bill limiting the amount of state money paid to presidents to $225,000 annually. Anything above that will have to come from private sources, such as a university foundation.
Mitch Maidique, president of Florida International University in Miami, called the law a "public relations negative."
"It sends the wrong message to the nation," Maidique said at a meeting of the Board of Governors, which oversees higher education in Florida.
He said the salary cap shows other states that Florida is not willing to pay its university leaders comparable salaries.
The pay race began last year when FIU agreed to raise Maidique's salary to $285,000.
Eight of the 11 state university presidents now receive more than $225,000 a year from the state. Two presidents have state salaries of at least $300,000.
One is USF's Judy Genshaft, who makes $325,000. The other is University of Florida president Charles Young, who makes $350,000. UF is currently searching for someone to replace Young, and says it may pay his successor as much as $900,000 in salary and benefits.
A change allowing individual universities to set their own presidential salaries led to the increases. They came as lawmakers were approving hefty tuition increases and budget cuts, products of a slow economy and skyrocketing enrollment.
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