Ross questions accuracy of Free Press administrative pay report, supported by WSU, WMU

That may be, but all I need to know is that tuition has increased by 50 percent in recent years, universities are cutting programs, and the president’s salary gets jacked up every year. Try and question that, George.

George Ross is embarrassing all of us alumni of CMU with his tirade toward the Free-Press.

George, you’re parcing words like Bill Clinton’s famous “what does is mean.”

I don’t know what FTE or HEIDI is. Doesn’t matter.

Here’s the bottom line, George.

The president of CMU, its senior officials and all employees including all the way down to the bottom of the pay scale and all faculty members were given too big of pay raises when the rest of Michigan taxpayers were losing their jobs, homes, taking pay reductions, etc. That’s the bottom line. Plus, tuition has skyrocketed! And, to be fair, CMU is not the only Michigan college guilty of this. They are all guilty. The difference is: how do the universities react when they get caught?

George, there are two ways to play this:
1. Mount a fight with the Free-Press and Lansing which you and all of us at CMU will lose. You’re not dealing with a dunce like Jennifer Granholm. You’ve got professional businesspeople running Lansing now. You can’t fool them. And, the Free-Press broadcasts out to the entire state.

2.Do what President Simon is doing at MSU……she said she has the cuts ready to go. She’s playing this smart PR-wise. She spent way too much money, too but when caught, she said she’s ready to cut.

But, if you want to blame all the crazy spending the previous president and the Board did on the Detroit Free-Press, then I suggest the Free-Press do the following:

Do a story on how much the CMU President (Mike Rao) made in 2006 and compare the increase to what you’re making today. Better yet, why doesn’t CM LIFE do this for next week so the undergrads will know. Surely, with the bad economy Michigan has suffered in the past 5 years,
surely the pay of the CMU president, senior officers and faculty have gone down. I’d bet the farm they’ve gone up and up a lot! CM LIFE should do a comparison.

George, I’d do what Simon is doing at MSU. Get the cuts ready and quit blaming the media for all the crazy spending CMU has done in the past 4-5 years. Tell the media the cuts are ready to go.
In fact, you’d look like a hero if you cut your salary back to the 2006 levels.

He as all those expenses to take care of…well…since the university pays for pretty much everything for him…why is his salary increasing so much every year?

Is “informed liberal” an oxymoron?

If you do not like working for CMU…please leave…someone could probably be hired for less than what you are being paid. There are 39 senior officers at CMU…that is likely where the massive increases came. Too bad if you were in a P&A band that did not get their raises. There are 700+ Professional & Administrative positions, ranging from OP-3 with a minimum salary of $9.07 per hour all the way up to a P&A 6 a minimum starting salary of $66,300.
That does not include the benefits (including 10% of salaried base pay being paid into a retirement account for you, 20 days of vacation, and 24 free credit hours, among others).

Oh, and your “administrative” position must not include the use of proper grammar. In your fifth paragraph, you stated, “as well who’s son” (sic). You must have meant to say “as well as whose son”, since the contraction who’s is short for who is or who has, not the possessive form of who.

If you really want to see greed, then start at the top. Someone comes back to more than DOUBLE his salary from another president’s job. Granted he did not ask for a job for his wife, but he got an increase of $17,000 MORE than what Monica Rao was paid and a signing bonus! A SIGNING BONUS in this day and age…if that is not the height of greed….well, other than Barney Frank and Chris Dodd protecting the people and organizations they ordered to start making loans to people who had NO chance of paying off the loan, all the while taking massive campaign contributions from the same banks and organizations.

Not complaining, eh? “I know I can get paid 40 to 70% more in other parts of the US…” and “My Total Compensation is severely lacking…” Your words, not mine.

Please name a company that has profit and loss responsibility to its shareholders that is continuing to pay an ADDITIONAL 10% into a retirement account for each administrative employee (not counting union-mandated contracts). Most of us have had even our matching 401(k) contributions eliminated. The cafeteria plan that CMU gives you for medical insurance, prescription drugs, dental, vision, life insurance, long and short-term disability insurance does count under total compensation. However, the additional benefit of 10% of base salary added to your retirement account is nothing I have ever seen in the corporate world. My health care costs have increased exponentially as well, wiping out any salary increases for the past few years. The difference is that my salary is not paid for by taxing the citizens of this state. Those are my tax dollars that pay your total compensation. Your total compensation also includes funeral leave, 12 paid holidays, a “reasonable” amount of personal leave time, 13 sick days per year, 22 days of vacation time. Even without taking sick days, funeral leave, or personal leave, you have 34 vacation/holiday days. That is almost 7 weeks! Most of us get half of that.

So what exactly is the bigger picture?
A national leadership (Obama, Reid, Pelosi) that forced Obamacare on us?
A state leadership (Mulhern) that through ineptitude or ambivalence has led to a crumbling infrastructure and massive debt? Yes, in less than five years we were blown away.
A national leadership that has racked up nearly 4 trillion in debt in a little over two years?
A national leadership that did not want to pass a budget before the mid-term elections, causing the looming shutdown we now face?

Isn’t it interesting that McDonald’s announced it was going to be hiring 50,000 workers in one day? I’m *sure* that the exemption from Obamacare had nothing to do with this hiring spree. It is ironic that the same liberals who derided the previous President for creating “hamburger-flipping” jobs are hailing this as a sign that the economy is improving.

I live in a fact based world, and these words aren’t complaints, just facts. My car’s torque is severely lacking also, that is just a fact. Why can’t you see this?

Here’s 30 companies for you, as requested. Note Mcdonald’s contributes 131% for each dollar it’s workers contribute. UA is off the charts, and Nucor is at 400%.

Are you being disingenuous when you say you haven’t seen this in the corporate world? What difference does it make if the 10% is an additional benefit? It is still included in our total salary at CMU? If my total salary was 70k with the 10% benefit, you can bet my base salary would be tuned down for a 30% benefit, ie, I’d still be making 70k. I don’t understand what the big deal is on this 10%? In fact, I’d much rather have my base raised by 10% and use the retirement money in a tradeable Roth. I wouldn’t be tethered to Fidelity or TIAA and I could invest in anything I wanted. Silver miners are doing quite well these days.

The time off is gratuitous, I’ll agree, no one I know uses the sick time, I have 7 years worth and that seems low. They do have a sick leave bank that we can donate for others that fall ill. Vacation days roll off at 37.5 days, less than 2 years, which is very low (again, facts, not whining). I’ve had other employers that offered the option to cash out your vacation days instead of forcing you to take them or lose them. Now that was some real compensation! I know a lot of cmu employees that don’t take all of their vacation alloted, it rolls off and they are always pinged at 300 hours. I don’t know anyone that is gone anywhere near 7 weeks out of the year in my area and a few others that I’m familiar with. I know Coke here in town gives you maybe 10 to 12 vacation days and 3 sick days, and that’s it for the year.

As far as tax dollars and university funding, it’s also my tax dollars that are helping to pay myself! I’m paying part of my salary with my own taxes, how do you think I feel? That being said, I think there is going to be a big shift in state universities coming across the US in the next 15 years. You will see less of them, collapsing into one another or disappearing altogether. Online learning and trade skills will continue to cut into the bottom lines for traditional universities like CMU and the increase tuition by multiples of wages cycle will hit critical mass for the consumer (students parents). We know the govt can’t afford to send students to higher learning.

The bigger picture is the US is in dire financial straits and it started arguably in 1913 when the federal reserve was started. Clinton was praised for raiding SS and having a year where a budget balanced! We have the power to do something about the mess since we elect the officials in office. Granted the candidates are usually cut from the same cloth, I don’t believe in the 2 party system, most of the politics is theatre in my opinion.

We need to cut entitlements since they are 43% of the budget. Trim down government, dept of education would be a nice start, but there are many others. Place the fraudsters in jail instead of bailing them out with 100′s of billions. Stop buying MBS with our own tax payer money (You did bring up tax payer money, you are losing far more due to the machinations of Bernanke and Geithner than you’ll ever lose to funding a misrun collection of state universities), and let housing fall another 20 to 30% where it belongs.

If this doesn’t happen, and I have little faith enough of us will wake up in time to stop it despite a small collection of us trying (see the ORIGINAL tea party, not the one parading around with that moniker now), then the bond market will be the final blow. When rates begin to rise, there will be no stopping it, see the PIIGS for how this plays out.

Interesting on the match provided by McDonald’s, UA, and Nucor. However, matching (or multiplying) an employee’s contributions is not the same as 10% given without any contribution by the employee. Say you are making $70k, that would be $7000 additional without any match. If you contribute 3%, you would take $2100 out of your total compensation. The company would have to match at 333% to bring you back to the additional $7000 plus what you took out of your pay.

Good point on the original tea party, but at least there is a group out there trying to reign in the madness.

Sorry to hear about your car’s deficiencies. Seems like the current national administration wants us all to drive around in Fiat 500s and Smart fortwos. Your car will seem like hot rod compared to those microcars.