UT-AAUP Newsletter

Don't Blame the Faculty

by: Donald K. Wedding, UT-AAUP Grievance Chair

In a Toledo Blade article of Saturday, May 16, 2009, Scott Scarborough, UT Senior VP for Finance & Administration, is quoted as saying that UT has a budget deficit of $16 million (M), of which $6M is due to the union collective bargaining agreements. According to The Blade article, the total UT academic budget is $517.8M and the clinical budget is $263.8M, making a total budget of $781.6M. The $16M is 2.0% of the total budget and the $6M is 0.77%, both well within margins of error.

Some members of the UT Board of Trustees (BOT) complain about excessive faculty salaries and benefits. Faculty are an easy target and a diversion for the Jacobs Administration as they continuously increase their own salaries, bonuses and benefits. One has only to look at the BOT minutes for the past two years to see the large pay increases given to administrators.

We do not have final budget figures but do have some good approximations which Mr. Scarborough or others are welcome to challenge. The UT-AAUP faculty have total salaries of about $50M plus fringe benefits of about 33%, a total of about $67M. This is 8.6% of the total budget of $781.6M and 12.9% of the academic budget of $517.8M. Thus UT-AAUP faculty salaries and benefits are only a small fraction of the total budget. By comparison almost 100% of UT revenues are derived from the faculty teaching students and bringing in grants. Administrators contribute little or nothing to the bottom line.

If the BOT is really interested in the $16M deficit, let them start with the administrative salaries & benefits. Also they should look at the $10M or more transferred to the new high tech corporation (formerly the high tech corridor) on Dorr Street which is a separate entity from UT. They could also look at the millions spent on the UT offices in China. When I asked Scott Scarborough in Senate this spring about the China offices, he said he did not know anything about them. Provost Haggett then spoke up and acknowledged these offices exist. Over the past 4 years, millions in UT treasury have been spent maintaining the China offices and flying (mostly First Class or Business Class) administrators and BOT members (and spouses) to China. This is at a time when other universities are closing offices in China. In addition to China trips, UT administrators are regularly traveling worldwide at the expense of UT. Other favorite locations for plane loads of administrators include India, Dubai, Europe, Japan, and South America.

The problems on this campus at all levels do not start with or remotely involve faculty. The problems at all levels are administrative where there has been and still is little or no accountability - especially if you are on the Jacobs team.