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By DAVID KARP, Times Staff WriterUSF's Judy Genshaft gets a raise, becoming the second-highest paid public university president in Florida.
TAMPA - In the 41/2 years since Judy Genshaft became president of the University of South Florida, her salary has gone up nearly 50 percent.
On Thursday, Genshaft's bosses gave her the latest bump. The USF board of trustees raised her annual salary by 5 percent to $342,720 and awarded her a $35,000 bonus for a job well done.
Genshaft's new salary leaves her the second-highest paid public university president in Florida. The University of Florida's Bernie Machen makes $375,000 annually.
"I just give her the highest marks," said trustees chairman Dick Beard, who praised Genshaft for expanding USF's research base.
The board approved the raise in about 20 minutes, with only the student representative voting no. Earlier this week, USF's student senate passed a resolution protesting the raise.
Senate President Stavros Papandreou said students could not support it when space constraints are forcing many of them to take classes in a movie theater at the nearby University Mall. He also couldn't back a $35,000 bonus.
"That is a person's yearly salary," he said.
Genshaft took over USF in July 2000, when the market for university presidents was taking off. Gov. Jeb Bush had just stocked newly-created university boards with corporate executives, who paid their presidents like CEOs.
Pay packages, loaded with perks such as country club memberships, far exceeded what Florida presidents earned when the now-defunct Board of Regents viewed them more like public servants.
In 2002, UF gave its president a $94,000 raise. Florida A&M University boosted its presidential pay by $90,000. Salaries were going up so fast that state lawmakers finally decided to put a $225,000 cap on the amount of public money that could be used to pay presidents. The rest of Genshaft's salary comes from donations raised by the USF Foundation.
Beard, a Georgia Tech graduate, noted that the president at his alma mater still makes about $100,000 more than Genshaft.
"Which hopefully will change," Beard said.
He said rising salaries reflect how difficult it has become to lead a college campus. Universities are sprawling places full of political minefields and competing groups - doctors, artists, athletes, alumni - that demand a president's attention. Few presidents last more than five years.
In 2002, UF gave its president a $94,000 raise. FAMU boosted its presidential pay by $90,000. Salaries were going up so fast that state lawmakers finally decided to put a $225,000 cap on the amount of public money that could be used to pay presidents. The rest of Genshaft's salary comes from donations raised by the USF Foundation.
As president, Genshaft oversees a billion-dollar budget and 12,400 employees on campuses in Tampa, St. Petersburg, Lakeland and Sarasota. "To be worried about $15,000 or $16,000 out of a billion-dollar budget is kind of short-sighted," Beard said.
Genshaft was not part of a board conference call Thursday during which her raise was approved.
Even with her raise, Genshaft makes less than the president of the University of Georgia, who earns $397,466, or the University of Texas, who makes more than $787,000. But her salary puts her ahead of presidents at higher-ranked public schools such as the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
The president at UNC makes $274,797. The president at UCLA earns $315,600.
USF faculty leaders weren't happy about the pay raise, with some describing it as "unconscionable" at a Senate committee meeting this week.
Anthropology chair Elizabeth Bird said she could live with the 5 percent raise, but the bonus of $35,000 seemed a bit much.
It's nothing personal against Genshaft, Bird said, but it sends a message.
"It's the perception that the gap between administration and faculty just seems to be getting bigger all the time," Bird said in an interview.
Faculty had to fight for a year to win raises averaging 5 percent. Until then, they earned less than their peers at five other Florida schools and far less than professors at schools USF considers "national peers."
One professor likened the proposal to a mentality that allows CEOs to get all the money, when other heavy lifters aren't rewarded adequately. Faculty said professors with stellar reviews got no pay raise last year.
Faculty Senate President Susan Greenbaum voted for the raise Thursday, while noting that many professors opposed it. She thanked Genshaft for working with her to raise faculty pay.
"I believed the proposed amount is not out of line," she said.
Times staff writer Jamie Thompson contributed to this report. David Karp can be reached at 727 893-8430 or karp@sptimes.com