We see now what Gov. David Paterson meant Wednesday when he spoke of “shared sacrifice” in the face of a $15.5 billion debt and rising tuition.
Paterson’s lack of opposition to a $490,000 salary for new State University of New York Chancellor Nancy Zimpher — and her use of a state car and driver while on University business — epitomizes that sacrifice in a time when SUNY students are facing tuition increases of over $600 per year.
Speaking at a town hall meeting at Broome Community College (See Page 1), Paterson must have believed he could pimp the crowd with a deflection of responsibility. It would be, of course, entirely unreasonable to blame him in full or large part for New York’s descent toward bankruptcy. Much larger powers, like Wall Street and its federal regulators, were at work.
But for Paterson to stand in front of 700 hundred or so blue- and white-collar workers while telling them that the only way to climb out of deficit is to share in the sacrifice, and then turn around and pay one educational official half a million dollars, is a slap in the face.
Our governor missed a golden opportunity to take a stand against the status quo of higher education, one that could have paralleled, if not exactly equaled, President Barack Obama’s proposal to limit top financiers’ salaries to that half a million mark per year.
According to The Chronicle of Higher Education, the median salary for the chief executive of a collegiate system was $335,806 in 2007-08 — $402,789 at doctoral institutions. Like Wall Street’s inflation, that collegiate administrators’ salaries have escalated to these proportions isn’t Paterson’s fault — it’s a symptom of a systematic condition.
“The salaries of system administration officers … allow for successful recruitment and retention in a highly competitive market,” states SUNY’s Salary and Compensation Plan.
It’s all about playing the game, getting the big name. Zimpher, we hope for our own sake, does good things for the system. But what if SUNY found someone for $150,000 per year? Is it impossible to lead for less than half a million?
We do know that had Paterson said “no” to such an exorbitant salary for Zimpher — we say exorbitant relative to reality, not every other chancellor in the nation — it would have shown a real caliber of leadership, and put meaning behind his words.