MINOT N.D.
Members of North Dakota’s Board of Higher Education are raising questions about new pay standards that would make the university system’s campus presidents eligible for hefty salary increases. One president compared the changes to being generous with a team’s coach while shortchanging its players.
The board, meeting Thursday at Minot State University, voted 7-1 to give its tentative approval to new presidential salary guidelines. The ranges run from $290,000 to $325,000 at North Dakota State University and the University of North Dakota, to $130,00 to $160,000 at the system’s two-year schools in Bismarck, Williston, Devils Lake and Wahpeton.
The compensation issue will be revisited during board meetings later this year, said the board’s president, John Q. Paulsen.
“This is a work in progress. It’s very complex. It’s very important. There are a lot of implications,” Paulsen said in an interview. “I don’t think it’s unusual or unreasonable that we’re just kind of edging our way to a decision … We took some good steps (Thursday), but we’ve got more work to do.”
NDSU President Joseph Chapman and UND President Charles Kupchella now get state salaries of $211,686 each, topped up by deferred compensation from the two schools’ respective foundations. Earlier proposals put the minimum state salary at $300,000 for both jobs.
The salary schedule discussed Thursday also makes the remaining eight campus presidents eligible for generous raises. The pay figures were compiled using salary data from comparable universities in other states, and the suggested North Dakota ranges provide at least 89 percent of the average of those outside salaries.
