Soon to be retired MNSCU head

gets 11% bonus

From the Strib:

"You don't lay people off and give them a pink slip in this hand and give bonuses to the other people in this hand."

Such a performance-based system is actually "better for the taxpayers," said Scott Thiss, new chair of the Board of Trustees. In the past, the chancellor's pay was "almost guaranteed."

He pointed out that because of a systemwide salary freeze, McCormick's base pay remained at $360,000 -- appropriate for the head of a "$2 billion, complex enterprise," Thiss said.

Last year, the MnSCU system paid out nearly $300,000 in performance bonuses to its chancellors and presidents.

So let's see..

McCormicks salary is frozen at 360K$ but he got a $40K bonus.

That works out to 11%, doesn't it?

I am always amused when someone implies that because they run an expensive, complex, enterprise, they are worth the large salary they are being paid. I'd love to see one of these folks try to run a company like 3M or Medtronic - they'd get cut off at the ankles.

When's the last time you've heard of a university president going off to run a large corporation? Maybe sit on a board for a couple of hundred thou a year (see Ruth Simmons/Goldman Sachs), but RUN a company? In your dreams...

As Margaret Soltan put it:

... Simmons is incompetent as a director of a complex financial organization. She seems to be good at being a university president. She should probably have stuck to that. But now, after a decade at Goldman Sachs, she’s in deep doo-doo.

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