Court Costs

With a state government immersed in highway debates, major university presidents stepping down and controversy over new drugs, the state of Indiana has many tasks at hand that require immediate attention. It pays its employees $2.8 billion a year to handle these rising problems and develop procedures to solve them. \nGov. Mitch Daniels has been both criticized and praised for countless decisions during his tenure. For his efforts, he is paid an annual salary of $95,000. But he is nowhere close to Indiana's highest-paid public official. \nBoth IU President Adam Herbert and Purdue President Martin Jischke make more than $400,000 for their efforts to regulate university activities every year. Jischke makes slightly more than Herbert ($51,350 more per year). However, he is not the highest-paid public employee in Indiana.\nThe highest-paid public employee in Indiana is IU's newly hired basketball coach Kelvin Sampson. Pulling in his $500,000 guaranteed salary is not even the beginning of his future wealth. Sampson will also make a guaranteed $600,000 in supplemental income, making his total income for this year $1.1 million. Beginning next season, Sampson's contract will be worth a cool $1.61 million per year. \nSome interesting questions are implied in these statistics: Is there some obligation by states that their highest-paid employees be those running the government (those with the most effect on the greatest number)? Furthermore, how vital is it to the state of Indiana that its highest-paid employee be a coach at one of its universities?\nPaying public officials such as Gov. Daniels a large salary should not be a key concern of tax payers. Conversely, having highly paid public officials can be detrimental to governmental processes. Distractions, such as wealth, from political ambitions can fog the view of elected officials when envisioning what is most important for the people they govern. Though Daniels is one of the lowest-paid governors in the nation, he receives adequate payment for his area of responsibility. \nAs far as whether Sampson being paid truckloads of money is important to Indiana as a whole, the answer is a resounding yes. \nThe first reason is quite superficial. The sheer excitement that is incited in the Indiana population when we can come together as Hoosiers under the banner of the cream and crimson is astounding and makes for a wonderful state morale. We again know how great it is to live in Indiana.\nThe other is as important to the vitality of Indiana's condition as the quality of the elected leaders it has in place. And it has to do with the Indiana brain drain.\nI can remember how it was in 2002, when I was a high school student feeling out where I might like to pursue my higher education. Among my first choices were New York University, the University of North Carolina and the University of Wisconsin. Purdue had been off of my list for a long time, and IU was barely on the radar. And then IU's basketball team made a run to the NCAA national championship game. Infected with March Madness, and excited to be a Hoosier again, I was reminded that IU was, in fact, on the map.\nAfter the dust had settled and my euphoria dissipated, I still remembered IU. I discovered the Ernie Pyle Hall and the School of Journalism, made IU my college choice and now here I am, writing to you about my path to this university that began with a basketball game lost to Maryland 64-52.\nBasketball is such an intricate part of being a Hoosier that returning the team to the form of seasons past will remind some of the brightest young minds in the state that IU is still here with wonderful academic programs, as it always has been. And those students are more likely to stay in-state in order to pursue their careers. Getting attention through a basketball team will help us grow academically, whether "pure" academics want to admit it or not. \nRemember, when a movie titled "Hoosiers" was made, it wasn't about politics or mathematics: It was about basketball.