Former President John DiBiaggio was paid $368,393 the year before he resigned from Tufts' helm, according to a recent survey by The Chronicle of Higher Education. During fiscal year 2000, DiBiaggio's salary was $317,009 and he received benefits worth $51,384.
The figures were published in last week's edition of the Chronicle, which lists the compensation packages of presidents and the five highest-paid employees (other than the president) at 600 private US colleges. The Chronicle's data came from Form 990, a federal tax return filed by nonprofit organizations.
Human Resources administrators refused to disclose how much Tufts' new president, Larry Bacow, is paid. His salary will not be available for another two years, when form 990 data for fiscal 2002 becomes public. Although Bacow was MIT's chancellor and, along with the provost, the school's second-highest academic officer, his 2000 pay was not high enough to be included on MIT's 990 filing. According to the Chronicle, MIT's sixth-highest paid employee was Engineering Dean Thomas Magnanti, who received $321,143 in pay and $24,638 worth of benefits.
At Tufts, the second-highest paid administrator in 2000 was medical school Dean John Harrington, whose salary was $289,376. Executive Vice President Steven Manos, dental school Professor Maria Papageorge, Senior Vice President Thomas Murnane and Naushirwan Mehta, general dentistry chair, were paid $247,141, $274,008, $255,990, and $240,664, respectively.
The five employees' average benefits package, which includes deferred compensation, pension plans, and health insurance, was $34,772. According to the Chronicle, benefits packages typically increase as employees approach the end of their terms, when they are more interested in deferred compensation and universities are more likely to award bonuses. The benefits paid to former president of Williams College Harry Pane, for instance, surged by $600,000 to $645,672 in 1998-1999, the year he resigned.
DiBiaggio stepped down one year after the reporting period, but his benefits were only marginally higher than during previous years. No one from human resources was available yesterday to say exactly what constituted the president's benefits package or if it included accommodation in Gifford House, his official residence.
DiBiaggio was one of 86 college presidents paid more than $300,000 that year, and his salary was above the average president's salary, which was of $207,130. But his salary was $14,718 below the median and his 2.5-percent annual raise was below national average of 11.2 percent. The annual inflation rate in 2000 was 3.5 percent.
The former president's salary - frequently contrasted with how much OneSource pays its janitors - also paled in comparison with presidents at some other schools.
The highest-paid president in 2000 was George Roche III, who pocketed $1.2 million the year he resigned from Hillsdale College in Nov. 1999. The package included $906,000 of deferred compensation.
According to the Chronicle, Roche was president at Hillsdale for 28 years, and had turned the conservative college "into a fund-raising powerhouse."
Among the four highest-paid presidents in 2000, fourth-ranked Judith Rodin, president of the University of Pennsylvania is the only one still in the position. That year, Rodin was paid $604,000, plus benefits.
The university's trustees say Rodin's leadership talent justifies her salary - which to a large extent includes her fundraising ability.
Salaries do not appear to correlate with a university's wealth or the size of its budget. At Harvard, for instance, former President Neil Rudenstine was paid $352,650 and received benefits worth $27,622. Harvard's annual budget is $2 billion and the school's $18 billion endowment is larger than any other university's, yet Rudenstine's salary trailed that of 42 other presidents.
In some cases, administrators' salaries have little to do with a university's internal hierarchy; market forces have forced universities to pay salaries that are competitive with those offered by for-profit companies.
According to the Chronicle's survey, the biggest earners among all university employees were medical personnel, lead by UPenn's William Kelley, who received $7.8 million in 2000. The package included $5.9 million in deferred compensation. Twenty-three other medical employees earned more than $1 million.
Excluding medical personnel, the highest-paid university administrator was Issac Kohlberg, the associate dean for science and technology at New York University. His compensation in fiscal 2000 was more than $1.28 million.
William T. Spitz, vice chancellor of investments and treasurer at Vanderbilt, was paid $954,804, including more than $300,000 in benefits. He was one of several finance administrators at the top of the Chronicle's list.
At universities where sports generate revenue, coaches are well compensated. In 2000, Randolph Walker, the head football coach at Northwestern University, took home $914,181.
