Lawmakers concerned about UNC system board’s closed meetings

The UNC system’s Board of Governors will meet Friday to hear a report on faculty compensation and take action on a legislative request – two weeks after giving controversial raises to chancellors in a lengthy closed session.

The notice for Friday’s previously unplanned meeting was sent to reporters Wednesday. An agenda listed the two topics – faculty compensation and a legislative request – but gave no further detail. UNC system officials did not respond to a request for more information Wednesday.

Shelly Carver, a spokeswoman in the office of state Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger, said in an email Wednesday that legislators’ request to the board was “related to concerns about compliance with the state’s open meeting laws.”

On Oct. 30, the board met privately for more than two hours and acted to give raises to 12 of 17 UNC system chancellors. The pay increases ranged from 8 percent to 19 percent, prompting criticism by faculty and others who pointed out that rank-and-file employees and professors had received no pay raises this year.

Representatives of media organizations, including The News & Observer, objected to the secret vote and the university’s failure to promptly release information about the salary increases. Amanda Martin, counsel to the N.C. Press Association, said at the time that there was nothing in the language of the Open Meetings Law that would permit the board’s closed-session vote to set or raise salaries.

Salaries of public employees are a matter of public record under the law. The information about the chancellors’ raises was not released by the university system until three days after the vote. UNC system officials said by then the raises had been communicated to the chancellors and had been implemented.

The News & Observer requested minutes of the closed meeting and details on how board members voted, which some members have described as split. State law says the minutes of closed meetings must be produced, as long as their release wouldn’t “frustrate the purpose of a closed session.” So far, that information has not been disclosed.

In a Nov. 5 email, the UNC system’s general counsel, Tom Shanahan, wrote that the Oct. 30 meeting minutes had not yet been prepared or approved by the board.

“I expect that to occur at the December meeting,” Shanahan wrote to an N&O reporter. “The Board will then need to address your request to disclose the information that you are seeking. Until then, staff are not in a position to respond. Your request will be shared with the Board in advance of the next Board meeting.”

The board’s next planned meeting was to be Dec. 11 – until the scheduling of Friday’s meeting.

Lawmakers have voiced concerns about the board’s process for the presidential search that recently ended with the hiring of Margaret Spellings, former U.S. secretary of education. Some board members had complained that they had been kept in the dark by an 11-member presidential search committee. The board has 32 members.

The legislature responded with a bill that at one point would have required public disclosure of finalists in an effort to force more transparency in the process. In the end, the bill didn’t go that far. It dictated that three finalists be brought before the full board for review.

The bill became law without Gov. Pat McCrory’s signature – just as Spellings was named as the successor to UNC system President Tom Ross.

The board set Spellings’ base pay at $775,000, which is $175,000 more than Ross’ salary. She will also be able to earn more money with deferred compensation and with possible performance bonuses, according to her five-year contract.

Faculty groups at two UNC campuses – Appalachian State and East Carolina – spoke out against the recent chancellors’ raises. An online petition suggested the chancellors should decline the increases.

Board members who supported chancellors’ raises said the higher pay would put the UNC system more in line with competitors in the higher education market.

This story was originally published November 11, 2015 at 7:03 PM with the headline "Lawmakers concerned about UNC system board’s closed meetings."