Monday, November 3, 2014

Really Chancellor Zimpher?

News out of Albany is that Nancy Zimpher, the Chancellor of the State University of New York (SUNY) system, may be up for a little raise.  After all, she has to scrape by on a measly base salary of $490,000 a year - her total compensation package, by the way, is $657,953 a year and includes things like a housing allowance (she doesn't even have to pay rent out of that salary!) and a car and driver.
 
According to other news reports, she also collects over $75,000 a year in retirement payments from the Ohio's teachers pension fund (higher than my base salary!).

How much of a raise will she potentially receive?  The Albany Times Union thinks her salary could rise by a few hundred thousand dollars a year!  Holy shit!

As a professor in the SUNY system, I received, over the past four years, salary increases of 0%, 0%, 1.6%, and 1.6%.  This did not keep up with the cost of living meaning I effectively lost money from my modest base salary (which is less than 10% of her compensation package).

In addition, State aid to community colleges is currently 9% below the funding we had in 2009/10 (the State is "mandated" to pay 33.3% of our operating budget - they don't).  Our college struggles on a shoestring budget, students can't afford tuition and fees, our infrastructure is crumbling, we can't hire the new full-time faculty to replace ones we lost, and our chancellor lives on champagne and caviar with the other fat cats in Albany.

Have you no shame Chancellor?  Do you really think you're worth a million bucks a year for what you do for SUNY while State community colleges are struggling to exist?  I don't.

2 comments:

  1. Looks like the Chancellor will be doing the right thing: http://www.timesunion.com/local/article/SUNY-leader-rejects-raise-5891911.php#photo-7140902

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