September - University of Nebraska

Additional Item
TO: The Board of Regents Addendum IX-B-15
Business Affairs
MEETING DATE: September 5, 2008
SUBJECT: Executive Salary Equity Initiative
RECOMMENDED ACTION: Approve a privately-funded supplement to the base salaries of the
University of Nebraska president and the four campus chancellors to
more closely align them with the midpoint of comparable peers.
PREVIOUS ACTION: None
EXPLANATION: The Board of Regents’ goal of providing competitive salaries and
wages is captured in Strategic Planning Framework item 2.a.i. which
states, “[Faculty] salaries and incentives awarded on the basis of merit
and fringe benefits should exceed the average of peer institutions.”
Similarly, it is the Board’s philosophy and intent to provide
competitive salaries to the administrative leadership of the university.
The gap between the base salaries of the University of Nebraska
president and the four campus chancellors ranges from approximately
5% behind to 31% behind the midpoint of their respective peers. A
comparison of 2007-08 base pay and average peer salaries is as
follows:
2007-08 Average Amount Behind Peers
Name 2007-08 Base Pay Peer Base Pay Dollars Percentage
James B. Milliken $307,227 $396,930 $89,703 29.2%
Harvey Perlman 266,136 321,029 54,893 20.6
Harold Maurer 321,638 420,161 98,523 30.6
John Christensen 240,000 251,029 11,029 4.6
Doug Kristensen 199,933 217,206 17,273 8.6
To establish an appropriate benchmark for executive salary
comparison, the Board considered institutions beyond those in the
established peer groups for the university system and each campus,
based on characteristics such as similar enrollments, athletic
conferences, Carnegie classifications, and organization. The influence
of outliers, usually high or low rates of pay, was controlled by
excluding the high and low salary in each peer group computation. An
average of all of the above attribute-based comparisons was used to
obtain the 2007-08 comparable peer averages shown in the table
above. Had only the Board-approved peers for faculty salaries been
used, the 2007-08 Average Peer Base Pay would have been higher,
creating more of a gap.
The Board of Regents, through approval of this item, seeks to
improve the competitiveness of the salaries of the university’s senior
academic leaders relative to the average salaries of leaders of other
universities similar in size and scope. In recognition of the value