R.I. college leaders paid well compared to peers

Rhode Island and Bristol County, Mass., private colleges and universities compensate their presidents well compared with their peers nationally, according to federal filings to the Internal Revenue Service.
Two of the 10 college leaders in 2011 – including the former president of Brown University and the current leader of Johnson & Wales University – earned more than $1 million thanks to deferred-compensation packages included with base pay and other benefits.
Excluding the three Catholic schools – Providence College, Salve Regina University and Stonehill College – whose much smaller stipends for religious leaders cover nominal benefits like housing and use of a vehicle, six of the seven remaining institutions paid their chosen leaders more than $410,523 – the amount that the Washington, D.C.-based Chronicle of Higher Education reports as the median for private-college presidents in 2011 – the most recent calendar year for which complete data is available. And three of those local college presidents earned double-digit increases in total compensation that calendar year.
Chronicle senior reporter Jack Stripling, who reports regularly on the topic of executive compensation in higher education, told Providence Business News that the comparatively high compensation – which includes base pay, incentives, retirement and deferred compensation – is not surprising in New England, where the cost of living is high and prestigious, pricey Ivy League schools, including Brown, dominate the educational landscape.
“New England has a lot of prominent ‘Ivies’ and is ground zero for some of the most prestigious institutions in the country,” Stripling said. “It stands to reason that boards of institutions in the region might find themselves paying more than the median – just based on the part of the country they’re in.” There tend to be two motivating factors on the part of trustees who offer these compensation packages, Stripling said: peer comparisons and the complexity of the institutions these presidents lead.
In 2011 Ruth Simmons, who led Brown for a decade before stepping down June 30, 2012 (she was replaced by Christina H. Paxson), earned $643,072 in base pay, which was part of a total compensation package of just under $1.3 million. The increase of 33 percent from the previous year was the highest in Rhode Island and Bristol County, Mass., according to Internal Revenue Service 990 income tax forms filed in fiscal years 2012 and 2011.
As part of that package, Simmons received other compensation, including deferred compensation, totaling $571,011, said Mark Nickel, Brown university spokesman. Simmons remains at the university as professor of comparative literature and Africana studies and president emerita, Nickel added.
Known in educational jargon as “the golden handcuff,” deferred compensation, which tends to spike at the end of a college president’s tenure, is money set aside by the university to be paid out in future years. Since a president may forfeit those dollars if she leaves before a certain date, it is considered a useful retention tool, Stripling said. (Total compensation packages for the most highly paid employees of a college or university can be broken down into several parts: base pay, incentives, other compensation, deferred compensation and nontaxable benefits.)
Coming in next with a 22 percent increase, JWU President John J. Bowen earned just under $1.2 million in 2011, including base pay of $593,521 and deferred compensation totaling $503,576. Likewise, Bryant University President Ronald K. Machtley got a 22 percent raise in 2011 that included a $94,720 bonus, as well as deferred compensation of $27,840. His total compensation in 2011 was $708,869.
All three schools declined to discuss reasons for the increases.
At least two leaders – former Rhode Island School of Design President John Maeda and Ronald A. Crutcher of Wheaton College in Norton – received 5 percent and 4 percent increases, respectively, in 2011 that were intended as adjustments for decreases they absorbed voluntarily the previous calendar year before because of the persistent economic downturn, spokespersons for those schools said.
“This was at a time when the college was engaged in significant cost cutting, including reductions in personnel,” explained Michael Graca, Wheaton’s assistant vice president of communications, in an email.
Maeda left RISD at the end of 2013, and an international search is being conducted for his successor. Provost Rosanne Somerson is serving as interim president.
At Roger Williams University, President Donald J. Farish earned $260,077 for 2011, but only from July 1, 2011, when he started, through December of that year, which covered his first six months at the helm after replacing Roy J. Nirschel, who resigned in 2010. In between, interim president Ronald O. Champagne filled the gap.
Farish earned $472,077 in total compensation in 2012, the most recent calendar year available.
No other schools provided 2012 calendar year data. The deadline for filing is Nov. 15, 2014, according to Marcus S. Owens, a partner with the Caplin & Drysdale law firm in Washington, D.C. •

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