ACTA's Must-Reads
« Raising tuition in the Bayou State | Main | Trouble in paradise? »
Letting in the sunshine
Over the past few decades, administrative and other non-instructional spending in universities has exploded relative to instructional expenditures. In fact, much of the increase in staff-per-student ratio since the 1970s has come from non-instructional personnel, helping to drive up costs without appreciably affecting the quality of education. Also grabbing headlines have been reports of generous--some would say exorbitant--salaries for college presidents and other administrators. All of these factors contribute to college costs that continue to outplace inflation, a situation that has received a great deal of attention from the Louisiana Postsecondary Education Review Commission, to which ACTA submitted testimony in December.
With this national backdrop, it is not surprising that during its 2009 session, the Arkansas state legislature passed Senate Bill 55 (renamed ACT 321) in order to "increase salary transparency for administrators in state-supported institutions of higher education." The act stipulates that a "state-supported institution of higher education shall submit a report listing each administrator at the state-supported institution of higher education who earns a salary of one hundred thousand dollars ($100,000) or more to the Higher Education Coordinating Board and the Department of Higher Education by July 1 each year, beginning July 1, 2010."
One can surely sympathize with the legislators' desire for transparency; but it shouldn't take a statute! In 2006, ACTA testified before the Senate Finance Committee Roundtable and called upon boards to take the first steps themselves toward accountability. We recommended boards voluntarily publishing annual reports outlining such information as: compensation of the president and all senior administrative officials, whether conflict of interest policies are in place, board member attendance records, board compensation and the names and addresses of all trustees. "Self-policing measures by the higher education community," we noted, "...will obviate the need for legislative intervention." The higher education community should take note.
Posted by Sandra Diaz on January 07, 2010 at January 7, 2010 11:27 AM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.goactablog.org/blog/mt-tb.cgi/715