CHAPEL HILL -- A policy that guarantees administrators a one-year leave at full pay when they step down from their posts is a critical recruitment tool, the chancellors of five of North Carolina's public universities said Thursday.
The group, which included UNC-Chapel Hill's Holden Thorp and N.C. Central University's Charlie Nelms, defended the 4-year-old "retreat rights" policy Thursday at a workshop for members of the UNC system's Board of Governors. Still, the board will consider scaling back in the coming months.
The policy is one of two under scrutiny for doling out paid leaves to administrators returning to teaching. In the past five years, taxpayers have paid about $8 million to 117 administrators who either returned to the faculty or left the university. In 24 cases, the payouts were for $100,000 or more.
A News & Observer review published Sunday found that these agreements, along with other transitional payments, offered sizable sums of money with few or no strings attached, in at least three cases violated UNC system policies.
Nelms was a vice president in the Indiana University system before coming to NCCU two years ago at a starting salary of $258,000. He would not have made the move had the UNC system policy not existed, he said. He wanted the assurance that he'd have a faculty post and a year off to prepare for it once his chancellorship concluded, he said.
"Had that not been an option, Erskine, I would not have accepted your invitation," Nelms said, eyeing his boss, UNC system President Erskine Bowles.
The policy allows a university president or chancellor retiring after at least five years of service a one-year "retreat" at full administrative pay.
He or she would then return to the faculty and earn 60 percent of that salary.
One comparison: If Nelms had stayed at Indiana and returned to the faculty there, his salary would have been 83 percent of his administrative pay, he noted.
Rosemary DePaolo, in her seventh year as chancellor at UNC-Wilmington, said the retreat rights policy, while difficult for those outside academia to digest, is a critical piece of the compensation package for people considering a leadership post at a public university. The jobs are stressful, and potential chancellors want to know they'll be taken care of, she said.
"We do need a cushion upon which to fall back, because falling back is all too likely," said DePaolo, who is the second longest-tenured chancellor in the UNC system, behind only John Bardo, Western Carolina's leader since 1995. "These are high-risk jobs with high turnover. You might not like them philosophically, but this is a business and we have to compete."
So did William Funk, a consultant who advises universities on executive searches. The UNC system policy, he said, was similar to those around the country. Funk was invited by UNC system leaders to speak at the Thursday workshop.
'Times have changed'
The universities have retreat rights policies in place to help administrators, who often haven't taught in several years, retool for the classroom. The policies are under review, in part because of recent publicity about such agreements at N.C. State University, but also because of a tight state budget. Legislators recently cut programs and raised taxes to close a revenue gap of more than $4 billion.
State Rep. Nelson Dollar, a Cary Republican, said the policy should be scrapped entirely.
"Nobody should be paid for work they are not doing," he said Thursday. "Especially when it's the taxpayers who are paying it."
Though created just four years ago, the policy was drafted with the university in a different mindset. Money flowed freely. Campuses were in the midst of a construction boom and enrollment was swelling. Now, with the economy in tatters, questions are arising about this use of taxpayer money.
"We are a public system, and we have begun to lose some of the public's confidence," said Hannah Gage, the board's chairwoman. "Our current policy was passed in a time of great prosperity. ... Times have changed."
Bowles is recommending the policy be scaled back to just six months of leave at commensurate faculty salary along with an agreement about work expectations during that time off. Under the current policy, former chancellors or presidents on this paid leave never have to report to a supervisor or produce any work.
"The package we offer today is slightly more generous than it needs to be," Bowles said. "I do not think it contains enough accountability."
Thorp, a tenured chemistry professor at UNC-CH who 13 months ago became chancellor there, said that while the retreat rights policy wasn't as much a factor in his decision to take that job as it was for some of his counterparts around the UNC system, it does provide him comfort.
"It's very important to me that I have the ability to be a faculty member again if y'all decide you want someone else to be chancellor at UNC-Chapel Hill," Thorp said.
The board will discuss the issue again next month.
