Tweet

Data shows Grand View pays administrators more than the average university

Grand View University pays its administrators significantly more, on average, than similar institutions, according to research compiled by the Viewfinder staff. We gathered compensation data for GV’s administrators via 990 tax forms as reported by ProPublica, a public online database. Our goal was to better understand GV’s financial expenditures in light of the estimated $2.23 million budget shortfall the university is currently experiencing, (GV’ Vice President of Administration and Finance, Adam Voigts). We hope our findings will spark a discussion about the most efficient and effective use of the university’s capital, to which tuition dollars contribute. All the data used in this research is publicly available and suggests GV allocates more of its budget to administrative compensation than competing schools. It also pays more on average to individual administrators.

The comparison was made between the administrative annual pay at aspirant and peer institutions in relation to GV. Grand View considers itself to be like its peer institutions while it strives to be more like its aspirant universities. Administrators at GV use these schools as benchmarks when determining salaries for faculty and staff members each year. Peer institutions in this research included Clarke University, Midland University and Mount Mercy College. Aspirant universities included Wartburg College, Simpson College and Morningside College.

Overall Budget Allocated to Administrator Pay

By ProPublica’s calculations, GV spends 3.3 percent of its total university budget on administrative compensation. Peer and aspirant institutions, meanwhile, allocate an average of 1.4 percent of their overall budgets to administrative compensation. In other words, GV spends more than twice as much of its total budget on administrative pay when compared to peer and aspirant institutions.

To get a better sense of GV’s pay structure, we also examined the amount of the total budget used for faculty and staff compensation. This research revealed only a minor difference between GV’s faculty and staff pay, reported at an average of 29.5 percent of the overall budget, and our peer/aspirant institutions’ average of 28.4 percent. This disparity indicates that not all compensation is given the same priority within the total university budget.

Individual Administrator Compensation

Executive compensation, as reported in the 990 forms, is divided into two categories: “Reportable Compensation” and “Other Compensation.” Reportable compensation is most commonly reflective of an individual’s base salary or wages. Other compensation deals with miscellaneous benefits that an administrator receives on top of his or her given salary. These benefits can include stipends for housing or automobiles among other things. We combined these categories to demonstrate the total amount of compensation for each individual.

According to the data from the 990s, during the period of 2014-2016, GV President Kent Henning made a combined average of $399,546 per year, in contrast to the average of $298,278 made by presidents at the peer and aspirant institutions. The average compensation for non-presidential administrators here at GV was approximately $172,711 during the same period. Meanwhile, non-president administrators at peer and aspirant institutions made $145,184 on average.

Administration’s Response

When given the opportunity to address specific Grand View administrative salary information, Henning said that the numbers on the 990 forms are not reliable and that GV will not disclose any additional data.

“We will not be releasing any specific compensation information beyond what is reported publicly on those tax forms,” Henning said.

However, when presented with calculations from the ProPublica website, Voigts explained that because of differences in reporting between universities, these numbers and percentages aren’t always comparable.

Voigts said there are limitations and inconsistencies in the data collected and that information provided from the 990 tax forms couldn’t simply be compared “apples to apples.” He added that certain unspecified benefits, such as tuition exchange programs, can inflate an administrator’s salary. Tuition exchange is a benefit that allows administrators to send their children to a partner school tuition-free. The 990 data does not directly indicate when administrators are using any such benefits.

To help better understand the inflation of numbers, we asked Voigts which administrators received these benefits; he declined to release any specifics and stated that such data is considered private information.

Voigts also said that Henning receives a housing stipend, the value of which is not made clear in the 990 forms. Thus, Henning’s salary might be inflated in the 990 reports because of this stipend. However, it is also possible that the presidents at other institutions are receiving similar benefits.

Henning also said that an explanation for the inflated salaries could come from the fact that an administrator has worked at the institution for a long time. Henning, for example, has been at GV 17 years.

“There are some very legitimate reasons to expect someone’s compensation to be above the 50th percentile in order for them to be ‘fairly compensated,’” Henning said.

On the other hand, GuideStar, a website which reports 990s, states that the tax forms should contain “reliable comparative data.” It goes on to state that having this data and publishing it “can be the difference between maintaining or losing the public’s trust in the integrity of your organization.”

This trust, Henning said, is in the hands of the Board of Trustees, as they are the ones responsible for making all final decisions on campus compensation.

“The Board of Trustees gives final approval of compensation for the vice presidents, based on my recommendations,” Henning said. “There are industry-best practices for methods to be used to identify the proper set of institutions to use for comparisons. It’s quite data-driven and is typically done by the independent consultants to keep internal individuals from manipulating the comparison groups. Our Board of Trustees periodically engages those outside experts to collect those data and make the comparisons.”

To verify the legitimacy of The Board of Trustees’ process in making administrative pay decisions, Viewfinder reached out to the board chairman. Unfortunately, the chairman, who also oversees these compensation decisions, declined an interview citing a feeling of discomfort with the topic.

With no additional information from administration, the GV community is left to decide whether or not to trust the process that administration and the Board go through to set salaries. The stakes are high. GuideStar states there are huge consequences to pay if a Board of Trustees overcompensates an administrator.

“Penalties for excess compensation range from fines to revocation of an organization’s tax-exempt status,” GuideStar reported.

GV administration claims that the Board of Trustees is taking the necessary steps when setting compensation. However, the refusal by administrators and the Board to release more data makes it difficult to determine if we are paying our high-level staff members appropriately. 

As the school experiences canceled classes and slashed budgets, we encourage greater transparency from both administration and the Board of Trustees so that the campus can better understand the impact of this year’s budget shortfall.