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The Daily Tar Heel

UNC-system leaders paid less

Board of Governors discusses poaching

The UNC system’s top administrators are paid less than their colleagues at peer institutions, making them the targets of poaching attempts by rival institutions looking to lure away the universities’ chancellors.

Twelve of the system’s 15 university chancellors are paid less than the average compensation offered by peer institutions, according to a recent study conducted by the General Administration.

UNC-CH pays its chancellor $449,057 in salary and other benefits, while competing institutions offer their top administrators an average of more than $600,000 in total compensation.

Recently a number of other universities have made job offers to UNC chancellors, said Fred Mills, chair of the personnel and tenure committee of the Board of Governors. While none of the attempted poachings were successful, the board thought it was prudent to review the issue, Mills said.

“We’ve had some people try and pick off some good chancellors,” he said. “We’re just exploring ways we can maintain a competitive edge.”

Mills said the board is looking at a number of ways the UNC system could amend its executive compensation packages to make them more attractive. One option is to offer deferred compensation, meaning chancellors would receive some benefits only after staying in their positions for a certain number of years.

But any change to compensation packages is not likely to happen soon.

“There is no contemplation of a change immediately, said Laurie Charest, the UNC system’s interim vice-president of human resources.

“We look at these things because we want to remain competitive.”

The system is also committed to raising faculty salaries before those of administrators, Charest said.

But increasing faculty salaries will require the state legislature to approve additional funding.

In the recent economic climate, the legislature has frozen the salaries of state employees, which includes employees of the UNC system.

“The issue for me is pure and simple — faculty,” said Bruce Carney, executive vice-chancellor and provost at UNC-CH.

Carney said recruiting and retaining faculty members helps the University retain the best administrators.

“The best people are the reason people come and stay here, and we can’t afford to lose them,” he said.

But Carney also said the relatively low salaries the University offers its senior administrators does not seem to be making a big difference.

Of the retention fights UNC-CH has engaged in during the 2010 school year, none involved administrators, he said.

The intangible benefits of living and working in Chapel Hill also play a role in the University’s ability to retain its administrators and faculty.

Chapel Hill is a culturally rich college town with outstanding faculty, and that’s what keeps people here, Carney said.

In the event a UNC school is drawn into a retention fight, the system can draw on its secret weapon: a special fund designed especially to combat poaching.

If a school feels it must increase someone’s salary to keep them from leaving, it can appeal to the president’s recruitment and retention fund established by UNC-system President Erskine Bowles.

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While UNC engages in many retention fights every year, the campus rarely appeals for additional funding, Carney said.

The size of the fund, which is shared by all system schools, tends to vary, Carney said. He estimated it might be more than $1 million this year.

While the UNC system has been able to retain top administrators, some are worried it may become a problem down the road unless compensation increases.

“You can sell all the benefits other than money for so long, but eventually it boils down to money,” Mills said.

Contact the State & National Editor at stntdesk@unc.edu.