Rewarding terrible performance in Montana
If the Montana Board of Regents has just rewarded top university leaders for "normal" performance, the rest of the state should pray that we never see "below average" results.
It's hard for us to imagine what that might look like: Would any professor still have a job?
In a classic example of how much the "real world" differs from that of state government and education, most of the regents decided to hand out raises to top university officials, despite what is very sobering, disappointing year in Montana higher education. The university system said the bonus was a normal part of the process. We can only hope there was nothing normal about 2015, though.
Some of the lowlights of 2015:
The University of Montana announced that it will trim 201 full-time jobs from its payroll because of declining enrollment revenue.
Montana Tech in Butte gets critical international press for a grade fraud scheme involving apparently well-to-do Saudi exchange students.
Montana State University Billings continues to struggle as its enrollment numbers dip to levels that have not been seen in nearly 30 years.
UM also announces that it will have to trim between $10 million and $12 million in its 2017 budget year.
The Office of the Commissioner of Higher Education and Montana State University had been in serious planning about a proposed for-profit medical school to be located in Bozeman, even though residency slots for the students don't exist, and could undermine the state-supported WWAMI program which trains doctors from Montana.
Officials, including Commissioner of Higher Education Clayton Christian, suffered no financial penalty for such embarrassing results this past year. Instead, the regents handed out raises. In other words, taxpayer funds went to reward the mediocrity.
Keep in mind these raises, ranging from $2,000 to just more than $6,000, were in addition to the $500,000 (yes, that's a half-million dollars) the flagship university presidents and Christian were already in line to receive as "longevity bonuses." In other words, we value someone's ability to sit in a chair more than their ability to deliver results.
The only regent to vote against the pay plan was Martha Sheehy from Billings. She was the only one who seemed to understand the horrible message it sends to the public: Reward top administrators as more than 200 people lose their jobs. There's no spinning that one. It's a disconnect from a dismal reality.
Granted, the total bonuses (of just more than $30,000) wouldn't have probably saved even one of the 201 jobs that were being eliminated. But, it seems the leaders (the ones most responsible for the system's health) bear absolutely no financial consequence for what amounts to leadership bordering on inept.
Raises should be for jobs that are well done. In a system facing decline, is that really the message the university system wants us to believe — that the jobs of top leaders have been done well? Or, that those declines are "normal?" Are we rewarding officials for cutting jobs? Or failing to keep the system competitive?
The university officials have also tried to sell the public on the idea that comparatively speaking, Montana's education leaders are low paid. Surely university leaders with their doctorate degrees would be savvy enough to know what the job pays and understand that raises may not be automatically given. It seems like some regents are worried that we might lose top university leaders. Given 2015, shouldn't we be more worried about keeping them?
Since when did "everybody else is doing it" become a good enough reason for Montana to follow suit and pay more? We'd also point out that higher education isn't the only field that imposes a "Montana tax" — lower pay for a similar job than other states.
Cutting budgets and the jobs that go along with it may have been the right thing to do. But, the regents cannot appear to incentivize and reward what is a failure.
The Board of Regents, with the exception of Sheehy, has just endorsed very poor performance. In fact, they haven't just endorsed it, but rewarded it with your tax money.
UPDATED: Here is a partial list of the raises approved by the Regents.
Professional Before After
President 303,144 309,207
Provost 201,243 205,268
Vice president, research 193,925 197,804
Vice president, finance 177,197 180,741
Vice president, student affairs 157,523 160,673
Vice president, communications 154,196 157,280
Associate provost, global education 136,000 138,720
Associate provost 135,000 137,700
Legal counsel 128,000 130,560
