How Much Is Too Much?

Hi Everyone:

So there I was this morning reading the Sunday paper when the big headline read, Perks boost SUNY presidents' pay. For those of you who are not in the know, SUNY is the 64 campus, State University system in New York state. FYI, since 2008, NYS cutbacks to SUNY have amounted to $1.5 billion, or roughly 35% in operating aid. University officials have been pressing lawmakers for permission to raise tuition by small, predictable increments each year.

So what are the perks the SUNY presidents receive? According to my newspaper, they receive free housing or housing allowances, free cars and an array of other perks, including; golf-club memberships, paid retirement contributions, drivers for night driving and long trips, entertainment allowances and in one case up to $13,000 per year in additional personal expenses. Also FYI, the presidents' salaries range from $183,068 to well over $400,000. I am not so sure that the SUNY system should get automatic tuition increases when they seem to be giving away the ship to a small number of employees, namely the presidents. I understand the free housing or housing allowance perk. But if someone makes over $183,000, do they need a free car, free retirement funding, free entertainment expenses, free drivers, free golf-club memberships and free money for additional personal expenses? Probably not. It is time to come back down to earth and take back some, if not most of those perks. That to me would be a common sense approach to slow down the runaway costs of free perks to SUNY presidents. They make enough money to afford to pay their own way.

Til next week.

Peter