Governor M. Jodi Rell recently announced she is asking the Board of Trustees for the Connecticut State University System (CSUS) to rescind so-called “pay equity” raises that increased salaries by 10 percent or more for the CSUS chancellor and university presidents, including a former president who is on leave and her recently hired interim replacement.
The Governor also called for the development of a plan that would eliminate the CSUS central office and for legislative language that would return the all three public higher education systems – the University of Connecticut, CSUS and the Connecticut Community Colleges – to the State Personnel Act, thereby allowing for greater transparency, accountability and control.
“Frankly, I am at a loss to understand why, in these difficult times, the trustees would approve salary increases of as much as 8 percent, 10 percent or 10.27 percent for people who are paid between $285,000 and $360,000 a year,” Governor Rell wrote in a letter today (attached) to CSU Board of Trustees Chairman Karl J. Krapek. “How can anyone justify these increases to Connecticut’s taxpayers, to our students or to their parents at a time when tens of thousand of jobs have been lost in our state and countless families are struggling to make ends meet?”
The CSUS Board of Trustees met earlier this month to affirm raises for non-union managerial employees that took effect June 18 and the increases included the third step of “pay equity” program for high-ranking administrators. That resulted in net salary increases of 8 percent for more than two dozen CSUS officials and 10 percent or more for the chancellor and university presidents – including former Southern Connecticut State University President Cheryl Norton and her interim successor.
Governor Rell asked the CSUS trustees to rescind all “pay equity” increases and to give no pay increase “of any kind” for former SCSU President Norton or her replacement.
The Governor called the increases “intolerable” and noted that the annual financial impact of the salary increases for the chancellor and the university presidents (including former President Norton) alone is $186,702 – the equivalent of tuition and fees for 23 full-time students. She noted that the CSU system experienced the largest increase in tuition and fees – 35 percent – over the last five years of the three public higher education systems. CSUS students now pay more than $8,000 compared to $5,936.
“It is clear this is a system that is running itself largely unchecked and is quite insensitive to the fiscal realities of our times,” the Governor said. “There needs to be a sea change in Connecticut to control higher education costs.”
As a result, the Governor is:
· Forming a panel to develop a plan to eliminate the CSUS central office, consolidating the offices of the four campus presidents and achieving other administrative savings. The plan must be submitted to the Legislature and the Governor by December 1;
· Directing the Office of Policy and Management to work with the Department of Administrative Services to draft legislation that will bring employment functions of all three public higher education systems under the State Personnel Act for more transparency and accountability. The goal is to include all hiring, dismissals, pay and other matters in the CORE-CT system.
“College education in Connecticut – the cornerstone of economic, professional and social success for our young people – has grown increasingly unaffordable,” Governor Rell said. “Sadly, the driving force behind these excessive increases has not been classroom costs – it has been the growth in bureaucracy and administrative overhead.
“These costs must not only be controlled, they must be reduced – and it must happen before we price higher education of out reach of the majority of our students. A roster of the finest professors and a campus with the most up-to-date research facilities in the world are useless if there are no students who can afford to matriculate,” the Governor said.
