IU should cut from the top

In an unprecedented television address last night, Gov. Frank O'Bannon outlined a drastic plan to save the state from financial ruin. Among other things, he called for legislators to tap rainy-day funds and tobacco settlement money, to increase taxes on cigarettes and to decrease spending at government agencies across the state.\nAnd he called on lawmakers to freeze university budgets at the same amount they were this year. He warned that if lawmakers rejected his plan, he will be forced to make "painful cuts" including at universities.\n O'Bannon's plan is necessary and prudent; the University should do everything it can to tighten its belt. The University already started that process this year, but it has a strange concept of tightening its belt. Inflating salaries and creating new positions in the administration isn't belt-tightening.\n The Physical Plant informed its employees' union earlier this month that it was considering laying off about a dozen employees, in part because of the budget crunch. The University hinted that more Physical Plant employees might be dismissed if O'Bannon cuts IU funding.\nYet President Myles Brand's salary jumped from $272,000 last year to $298,700 this year. (Keep in mind that the University provides his house, that the IU Foundation provides his car and that many of his meals are paid for by the University.)\nTrustee John Walda was recently hired to take on a new position as executive director of federal relations for IU. The University's share of his salary is $100,000.\nFormer Vice President Christopher Simpson left his position with the University last year and gave up his $165,400 salary. Another person was hired to replace him at nearly the same salary, but Simpson was hired for one year as a consultant to the University. He has been paid $10,000 a month to do much of the same job. That's a total of $120,000 for the year that the contract lasts.\nThe University expects departments to cut back on their spending and even on their employees, but the spending at the executive level continues to grow. Brand makes nearly $300,000 a year, despite having almost no expenses that he must pay. A trustee is given a University job that puts a $100,000 dent in the budget. A vice president resigns but is essentially kept on payroll while someone else is also hired for the position, at a cost of $120,000. \nHow many physical plant workers could retain their jobs if those funds were more appropriately spent?\nThe state is in a budget crisis; that is not in doubt. As much as the University might want to escape the crunch, it's there.\nWhat we need now is leadership from the top of the University in helping to keep the University's spending as low as possible without compromising its academic mission. \nThe University's recent spending at the administrative level isn't belt-tightening, it's a clear message that IU is willing to sacrifice those employees in the lower pay grades while inflating the ranks of the administration.