Oh, sure, Roderick McDavis can negotiate a new contract providing an $85,000 raise (29 percent increase) bringing his salary to $380,000; plus annually deferred compensation of $45,600 (12 percent); plus $12,000 annually as a car allowance; plus three more vacation days than ordinary Ohio University employees receive; plus free and ample housing supported by a $78,242 annual residence budget; plus a quarter leave during the four-year term of the contract; plus a $3,144 increase in his spouse's salary; and an annual $2,200 allowance for a cell phone.
These are all facts about McDavis' compensation package the Jan. 12 issue of The Post revealed, and some of these items probably surprised many readers. Still, this well-researched story overlooked other compensation given McDavis but certainly not other OU faculty and staff.
There's the $380,000 life-insurance package in addition to the $50,000 coverage ordinary OU employees receive; full family medical and dental insurance in addition to the coverage ordinary OU employees receive; additional disability insurance; the payment of his 10-percent contribution to his retirement plan that other OU employees must pay themselves ($38,000); payment of his financial planner's fees; the OU airplane available for his use ($1,000 an hour); a residence manager, housekeeping personnel, caterers, and a gardener; and appropriate club memberships.
Then The Post reported on Jan. 13 that the Budget Planning Council - controlled by the Executive Vice President William Decatur and the exiting Executive Vice President and Provost Kathy Krendl - will vote on offering ordinary faculty and staff no salary increases for next year. What The Post did not report in this story was that this same unrepresentative council, cloaked from the public and the press, also is voting on cutting as much as $5 million dollars from the healthcare compensation ordinary OU employees now receive. And this after McDavis admitted at the Jan. 12 Faculty Senate meeting that last year's healthcare package itself included a major illegitimate and unauthorized cut in employee compensation.
Oh, yes, another difference between the life that McDavis leads as opposed to that of all other ordinary faculty and staff at Ohio University is that the president - having the university pay for his every imaginable expense other than perhaps clothing - is free to invest nearly all of his remarkable compensation while ordinary OU employees watch their salary decline in real dollars, their healthcare benefits erode, and little left at the end of each month to invest in their futures.
Is this the strategic plan underlying Vision Ohio?
Joseph Bernt is a professor of journalism.
4 Opinion
Letter to the Editor
