Lexington Herald Leader Editorial: From Sweet to Sour.
From sweet to sour
It was quite a feat to take President Lee T. Todd Jr.'s selfless gesture of solidarity with struggling Kentuckians and squeeze from it a sour note.
But somehow the University of Kentucky's trustees did — and then praised themselves for their courage.
In the process, the board came off as disconnected not just from the reality on UK's campus but also from the public's mood.
Todd announced on Monday that "at a time when every department on campus is dealing with severe budget reductions" he would refuse a $168,000 performance bonus.
University of Louisville President James Ramsey and Gov. Steve Beshear also took voluntary pay cuts this year. Instead of picking up on that theme of shared sacrifice, or using the occasion to tout education as the best path to a stronger economy, the UK trustees launched a discussion of overhauling Todd's compensation package.
They worried that he's underpaid and approved what was billed as a merely symbolic vote to award him the extra money anyway.
Even without the bonus, UK's president brings home $354,000 in pay plus nice benefits, which must sound like a fortune to the 11 percent of working Kentuckians who are unemployed and to UK employees who haven't seen a raise for several years.
None of that stopped trustee James T. Stuckert from opining that pay of less than $1 million would be "paltry" for the CEO of a "$2.4 billion entity."
For all its size and complexity, UK is a flagship educational institution whose values are, and always should be, vastly different from the corporate values espoused by Stuckert. Safeguarding that educational trust is the board's duty.
As for board chair Mira Ball's assertion that it would be better to roll Todd's performance bonus into his base pay because bonuses have gotten a bad name, it's bonuses that reward failure that have gotten a bad name.
The public is all right with paying people based on their actual performance.
In fact, it's accountability that the public craves in the wake of reckless financial practices that reigned from Wall Street to tax-funded institutions in Kentucky.
There's nothing wrong with trustees talking about Todd's compensation, and there are established processes for doing that.
Making such a show of it at a time when many Kentuckians are struggling to make ends meet, much less pay for a child's education, was insensitive and disrespectful.
It was quite a feat to take President Lee T. Todd Jr.'s selfless gesture of solidarity with struggling Kentuckians and squeeze from it a sour note.
But somehow the University of Kentucky's trustees did — and then praised themselves for their courage.
In the process, the board came off as disconnected not just from the reality on UK's campus but also from the public's mood.
Todd announced on Monday that "at a time when every department on campus is dealing with severe budget reductions" he would refuse a $168,000 performance bonus.
University of Louisville President James Ramsey and Gov. Steve Beshear also took voluntary pay cuts this year. Instead of picking up on that theme of shared sacrifice, or using the occasion to tout education as the best path to a stronger economy, the UK trustees launched a discussion of overhauling Todd's compensation package.
They worried that he's underpaid and approved what was billed as a merely symbolic vote to award him the extra money anyway.
Even without the bonus, UK's president brings home $354,000 in pay plus nice benefits, which must sound like a fortune to the 11 percent of working Kentuckians who are unemployed and to UK employees who haven't seen a raise for several years.
None of that stopped trustee James T. Stuckert from opining that pay of less than $1 million would be "paltry" for the CEO of a "$2.4 billion entity."
For all its size and complexity, UK is a flagship educational institution whose values are, and always should be, vastly different from the corporate values espoused by Stuckert. Safeguarding that educational trust is the board's duty.
As for board chair Mira Ball's assertion that it would be better to roll Todd's performance bonus into his base pay because bonuses have gotten a bad name, it's bonuses that reward failure that have gotten a bad name.
The public is all right with paying people based on their actual performance.
In fact, it's accountability that the public craves in the wake of reckless financial practices that reigned from Wall Street to tax-funded institutions in Kentucky.
There's nothing wrong with trustees talking about Todd's compensation, and there are established processes for doing that.
Making such a show of it at a time when many Kentuckians are struggling to make ends meet, much less pay for a child's education, was insensitive and disrespectful.
Labels: News reporting
posted by KYJurisDoctor at 10:10 PM
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