When it comes to salaries at the U of M, thousands earn more than Gov. Tim Walz
By Mike Kaszuba
When Myron Frans served as the Commissioner of the Minnesota Management and Budget Office, he was listed as the state’s chief financial officer and oversaw human resources management and employee insurance for more than 50,000 state employees.
In 2020, he was paid $154,992.
But Frans soon left that job for a more lucrative one at the University of Minnesota, serving as the senior vice president for finance and operations.
He earned $436,349 before retiring in March, and agreed to stay on as a senior advisor to the school president.
Frans in fact is one of roughly 2,200 people at the school – many of them school administrators and athletics officials -- who earn more than Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. Walz earns $127,629 a year and over the last four years has, among other things, guided the state through the COVID-19 pandemic and the riots following the death of George Floyd.
Tim Kenny, the director of education at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum, the public garden overseen by the school, earns $152,475 – approximately $25,000 a year more than Walz.
Salary records at the University of Minnesota obtained by Public Record Media (PRM), a non-profit based in St. Paul, highlight what has been a long-standing issue: how to corral, and at the same time justify, the large salaries that are paid to top school officials at the state’s premiere educational institution. Advocates have maintained that the salaries are necessary to remain competitive, and have pushed the school to spend more on faculty salaries. The number of school officials – especially administrators -- earning large salaries meanwhile has continued to increase.
PRM obtained the salary figures from the school earlier this year, and a university spokesman said the school produces a full compensation report for its employees once a year.
In one sign of how non-academic salaries dominate spending, the records show that eight of the 11 highest paid people at the university work for the athletics department. All eight make at least $600,000 a year. The school’s head men’s basketball and football coaches are the highest paid school employees.
The records contain numerous other examples.
Interim University of Minnesota President Jeff Ettinger recently guided the school for just over a year, earned $400,000– and watched as 37 people at the school made more money than he did.
He earned the same amount of money as the football team’s cornerbacks coach and co-defensive coordinator.
At the U, 329 people earn at least $225,000
When the school’s board of regents met in June, its members heard a presentation on a “virtual forum pilot project”, which was described as a new tool to enhance the school’s “public engagement process.”
The presentation was led by the board’s executive director and corporate secretary, Brian Steeves, a relatively unknown administrator. Steeves makes just over $237,000, one of 329 people at the school who earn at least $225,000 a year.
The latest salary figures also come as some critics, including former Gov. Arne Carlson, have long decried the school’s “administrative bloat.” Eleven years ago, in a public commentary article, Carlson complained that the “reality is that higher-education leaders have created a financial model that focuses on their importance, and it is spiraling out of control.”
In 2013, the former Minnesota governor said that news reports showed that 17 people at the University of Minnesota made at least $300,000 a year. According to the latest records, there are now 118.
In fact, more people at the school make at least $500,000 in 2024 (19) than made at least $300,000 eleven years ago (17).
Carlson: The cost of administrators is “ballooning”
“The real cost [is the] administration,” at the school, Carlson said in a recent interview with PRM. “And that’s the one that is ballooning and sucking the wind out of everything.”
A University of Minnesota spokesman said rising salaries at the school are an ongoing issue, and part of the overall competitive market in higher education.
“When we talk about the general rise in compensation across higher education, the University has experienced that as well, whether that's top professors, leading researchers or talented leaders. It's an incredible competitive market across all those areas,” Jake Ricker, a university spokesman, told PRM.
“That said, there are some within the University community who believe salaries aren't keeping up with the market or the U of M's standing as one of America's leading research universities,” he added.
In April, an opinion article in the Minnesota Star Tribune written by a group of school officials outlined what they saw as the problem.
“Last year, the University of Minnesota and the Minnesota State system of colleges and universities requested legislative funding to support their core missions in both years of the state’s current two-year budget cycle,” the group, led by Mark Bee, chair of the school’s Faculty Consultative Committee, wrote.
“At the time, the state had a $17.5 billion surplus. To the astonishment of many of the U’s rank and file workers, the legislature funded both years of Minnesota State’s request, but only the first year of the U’s request,” the group added.
The group said data showed that, in 1990, Minnesota ranked ninth in the nation on per capita investment in higher education and allocated 6.8% of its general fund to the University of Minnesota. By 2021, the group said, data confirmed that the state’s national ranking had dropped to 25th, and the University of Minnesota’s percentage of the general fund had declined by more than half.
But the salary records obtained by PRM showed that some salaries have become more pronounced, especially when including the school’s athletic department.
Robert Wenger, the football team’s recently-departed special teams coordinator, made $365,000 a year – more money than the dean of the law school.
Andrew Sowder, the football team’s recently departed tight ends coach, earned more than Quinn Gaalswyk, the school’s chief auditor, who earned $200,237.
Marcus Jenkins, an assistant men’s basketball coach at the school, earned $60,000 a year more than Richard Painter, a law school professor, former U.S. Senate candidate in Minnesota and the former chief ethics lawyer for President George W. Bush. Painter earned $224,223.
Michael Osterholm, the world-renowned head of the school’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, earns less money than the head hockey coach at the University of Minnesota-Duluth. Osterholm emerged as a leading health authority during the COVID-19 pandemic. Nonetheless, 82 people at the school make more money than Osterholm.
An announcement from a $541,000-a-year administrator
The salary data contains other examples.
When the school announced in April that it was temporarily closing some campus buildings during the pro-Palestinian protests on the Twin Cities campus, the message was signed by three high-ranking university officials. “We recognize that with freedom of expression comes responsibility. Protesters are expected to uphold the safety of others, not interfere with normal campus operations, and adhere to student and employee conduct policies,” the school officials said.
The three officials were Rachel Croson, the school’s executive vice president and provost, who earns $541,335, Calvin Phillips, the vice present for student affairs, who earns $313,584, and Ken Horstman, the vice president for human resources, who earns $295,700 annually.
When the school faced another controversy, another top-paid administrator addressed the issue. In June, the school announced that two of the University of Minnesota’s highest-profile scientific discoveries – one regarding stem cells and the other Alzheimer’s disease – had been retracted in the same week.
Though acknowledging that the retractions were “painful”, Shashank Priya said the school remained committed to ethical research. “The vast majority of researchers [go] to their labs, their fields or their classrooms every day with a strong sense of purpose and integrity,” Priya told the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
Priya, the school’s vice president for research and innovation, is the school’s 25th highest-paid employee, earning $446,125 a year.
The board of regents meeting in June featured other high-paid administrators.
Three school administrators teamed together to give a presentation to a board of regents committee on Dear Minnesota, a “reputation marketing campaign” that was undertaken to promote the school. The combined annual salaries of the three administrators: -- $603,888.
“The Dear Minnesota campaign launched last September. It features a series of personal video messages from our researchers, our faculty and our students,” explained Laura Johnson, the school’s account services director. “They remind Minnesotans that the university has never stopped working to make our lives better and our state healthier by curing diseases, solving societal problems and educating the next generation of leaders.
“This campaign was designed to increase positive perceptions of the university among the Minnesota public as well as to reverse the trend of declining public perceptions,” she added.
At the same series of meetings in June, the board of regents also was given an update on PEAK, a new initiative to promote, among other things, efficiency.
“It’s an important initiative,” said Michael Volna, an interim vice president at the school. “The PEAK initiative is a strategic transformation in how we administer critical services across human resources, finance, information technology and marketing and communications. The purpose is to create value for the institution across our collection of academic and administrative units.”
“PEAK is an investment in our future,” Volna added, “and the focus is broader than just simply about cost cutting and saving money.”
Volna earns $257,626 a year, according to the salary report.
In the 11 years since Carlson, the former Minnesota governor, complained about administrative salaries at the school many of those salaries have gone up.
In 2013, Carlson pointed out that the lead attorney at the school made $295,000. The school’s general counsel, Douglas Peterson, is now paid $387,036 a year, according to the school’s salary data. The deputy general counsel earns $255,385. The office now lists a staff of 15 attorneys – five of them each earn $164,991.
Meanwhile, in March, the school’s board of regents also approved a contract to pay Rebecca Cunningham more than $1 million per year to be the new University of Minnesota president.
Robyn Gulley, a member of the board of regents, was quoted in the Minnesota Star Tribune as saying that “I sometimes struggle with these very expensive employment agreements.” But she added that “I also feel like there was a lot of care taken for it to be right-sized in a lot of ways.”
Cunningham’s total compensation package, according to the newspaper, placed her in the top quarter for presidents of Big Ten universities.
Salary study in 2004: “Our findings are reassuring”
The debate over whether salaries at the University of Minnesota are excessive is not new – and neither is the argument that the school has to pay higher salaries to stay competitive.
Twenty years ago, the state Legislative Auditor probed the issue of faculty and staff compensation.
“Our findings are reassuring,” the February 2004 report concluded. “Salaries and benefits at the University generally reflect market conditions. At the Twin Cities campus, where most of the University's faculty work, average faculty compensation is below that of similar private universities, but competitive with that of similar public institutions.”
But the report also acknowledged the growth of non-academic salaries at the school.
In the decade ending in 2003, the report said, the school’s number of full-time employees increased three percent, rising to 17,012 positions.
The report however added that during the same 10-year period the number of academic administrative and professional staff increased 74 percent. With that increase, the report added, the school’s academic administrative and professional staff had grown from 14 percent to 23 percent of the school’s workforce.
The report also noted that “despite its large contribution to University salaries, the Legislature has limited power over the University’s compensation practices. The State Constitution provides the University of Minnesota special legal status, and a Board of Regents, whose members are appointed by the Legislature, is charged with its governance.”
Managers at the University Foundation, the non-profit fundraising arm for the school, also do well by comparison.
Four employees of the University Foundation are among the top 100 highest paid school officials, according to the salary report. Kathy Schmidlkofer, the foundation’s president and chief executive, earns $518,750. Two vice presidents at the foundation earn just over $372,000 each.
James Aagaard, another University Foundation vice president, makes $274,748. Sophia Khan, still another University Foundation vice president, makes $249,000. Four other University Foundation officials each earn between $243,593 and $246,303 annually.
The salaries also show that a wide variety of administrators at the school earn more than prominent faculty members.
Mariacristina De Nardi is the highest-paid economics professor at the University of Minnesota, earning $500,000 a year. De Nardi, who is also a consultant at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, however earns less than Matt Simon, the wide receivers coach and co-offensive coordinator for the football team, who earns $600,000 a year.
Simon’s salary also put him ahead of Loukas Karabarbounis, another economics professor at the school who in 2019 won the Bernacer Prize given to the best European economist under the age of 40. The 23rd highest-paid person at the school, Karabarbounis earns $456,750 a year.
Steven Ruggles is a professor at the University of Minnesota and the creator of IPUMs, which the school said is the world’s largest and most widely-used population database with coverage of almost 100 countries and census data spanning over 200 years.
Ruggles earns $217,987 a year.
In contrast, Robert Motzko, the men’s head hockey coach at the Twin Cities campus, earns $455,000 annually -- $237,000 a year more than Ruggles.
Other prominent professors at the school find themselves in similar situations.
Larry Jacobs, a political science professor, is the founder and director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the school, and is often quoted in the media on local and national politics. He has written, edited or collaborated on 17 books, and recently released his latest book, Democracy Under Fire: Donald Trump and the Breaking of American History.
Jacobs earns $222,220 a year. Patrick Roche, a gift officer at the University Foundation, earns $231,650, according to the salary report.
Myron Orfield, a law school professor, is likewise the director of the school’s Institute on Metropolitan Opportunity. Walter Mondale, the late U.S. Vice President from Minnesota, called Orfield “one of the nation’s leading experts on the Fair Housing Act.” Orfield also served as an advisor to President Obama’s transition team for urban policy, and as an academic advisor to the Congressional Black Caucus.
He previously also was an advisor to the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
According to the school’s salary report, Orfield earns $213,000 annually.
Julie Manning, the senior woman administrator in the school’s athletic department, earns $217,265.
Matthew Bodie, a frequently-quoted professor on labor and employment law at the school, is another example. Bodie has been quoted in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post and other publications on employer surveillance, workplace challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic and Starbucks union organizing.
Bodie earns $210,172, according to the salary report.
Jason Jeschke, the associate head coach of the women’s basketball team, earns $210,000.
A chief marketing officer earns $234,000
Chuck Tombarge, the school’s chief public relations officer, earns more than the school’s director of research computing. So does Ann Aronson, the school’s chief marketing officer, who earns $234,375.
Matthew Clark, the police chief at the school’s Twin Cities campus, earns more than the director of the school of music. Three police lieutenants at the school’s Twin Cities campus earn more than Douglas Ohlendorf, a professor of biochemistry, molecular biology and biophysics, who earns $139,174 a year.
An administrative consultant at the University Foundation earns more than an associate dean in the college of pharmacy, who earns $157,768. A gift officer at the Bell Museum of Natural History earns three dollars a year more than Jairong Hong, a mechanical engineering professor who earns $129,290.
In January of this year the school announced that it was seeking another $45 million as part of an effort to increase wages for faculty and staff. A report accompanying the request said faculty salaries at the school ranked at the bottom of the Big Ten universities after accounting for the cost of living.
The push for the $45 million was led in part by Melisa Lopez Franzen, a former state senator, who serves as the school’s executive director of government and community relations.
Franzen earns $250,000 annually, according to school records.
Franzen told the Minnesota Daily, the University of Minnesota student newspaper: “We’re not able to spend the dollars in our institutions on one of the biggest drivers of how this place operates, which is people and staff and faculty.”
(Supporting documents for this article can be accessed by contacting Public Record Media at admin@publicrecordmedia.org , or at 651-556-1381)