News reports have it that incoming University of Pittsburgh Chancellor Joan Gabel will be paid an annual base salary of $950,000 with additional perks that could propel her compensation to well over $1 million.
What’s raising eyebrows is how that’s more than a quarter-million dollars higher than was paid to departing Chancellor Patrick Gallagher.
Pitt officials defend the increase by essentially saying that the pandemic played a role in suppressing Gallagher pay raises and, hey, Gabel’s deal is the going rate for university chiefs these days.
Only if you help to make it that way, we are forced to note.
And whether you agree or not with Gabel’s coming big payday — the overall details of which were released by Pitt — there’s an even larger issue here. At least in our minds. It comes deep in a Post-Gazette story:
“The contract is not available to the public.”
That’s outrageous. After all, Pitt, a “state-related” university, receives millions upon millions of dollars annually in taxpayer subsidies.
So, what else might be in Gabel’s contract?
There’s third-party speculation that it might have additional incentives.
If so, what are they?
A car? A driver? A subscription to Car & Driver?
We jest, of course – on the magazine subscription. But you get the point.
And is there any kind of golden parachute should Gabel be forced out before her contract is up?
If so, what are the sweet and green particulars for her and the bitter and seeing-red realities for those who help pay for such things. Students come to mind.
That’s an important question considering we seem to be living in an era of such cozy landings for high-profile leaders in the corporate world and academia forced out the door.
As we are wont to say in points-of-order-making such as this, the list of questions could go on and on.
But the public can’t know the answers because, well, again, “the contract is not available to the public.”
It should be. If Pitt won’t do so, she should make it available for public perusal.
For the lack of full transparency rightly breeds healthy skepticism that there’s more to Gabel’s contract than meets the eye or, money being fungible, pulls from the “state-related” taxpayer kitty.
Colin McNickle is communications and marketing director at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).
