UPEI president’s $366,500 salary disclosed, but faculty association wants more transparency

CHARLOTTETOWN, P.E.I. — P.E.I.’s solely college is falling behind different establishments throughout the nation in relation to transparency and accountability, says the school affiliation’s president.

Michael Arfken, president of the UPEI School Affiliation, stated regardless of senior administration at UPEI committing to transparency and accountability, the college fails to take action by not disclosing the bottom salaries, compensation, expenditures or employment particulars for a lot of of its high-ranking employees.

He stated many different establishments throughout the nation make this data available.

“You may truly Google an establishment and enter president’s contract, and I used to be shocked what number of locations (made that accessible.) Generally the college simply places it up there, and another locations have put in a FOIPP request and put it up, however there are comparisons to be made,” he stated.

Arfken’s feedback on the dearth of transparency come solely days after UPEI’s govt committee of the board of governors launched the wage grid for college making greater than $100,000 a yr, in addition to the bottom wage of the interim president, Greg Keefe.

In the release, Pat Sinnot, chair of the board, stated the choice to launch the wage grid was made within the curiosity of transparency and accountability and to increase the sorts of data accessible to the general public.

“UPEI has lengthy acknowledged the significance of each privateness and entry to data, routinely making giant quantities of institutional and different data accessible to the general public on the UPEI web site,” stated Sinnot within the launch. “Whereas there is no such thing as a laws or authorized requirement on P.E.I. to reveal the salaries of UPEI workers, many universities throughout the nation are required to publish compensation data.

“The board of governors determined at a latest assembly that it could disclose the wage grid for workers who earn over $100,000 every year.”

The grid, which breaks down salaries into three ranges from $100,000 as much as $299,999, solely discloses the positions and what number of workers that make up these salaries, not the precise wage ranges for every particular person.

Nonetheless, Arfken stated wage grids for a lot of of these workers have all the time been publicly accessible by way of the collective agreements between the college and its numerous unions.

As for the interim president’s wage being launched, Arfken stated that was doubtless completed in response to a Freedom of Info and Safety of Privateness (FOIPP) request the UPEIFA submitted in April as a part of its preparation for its present spherical of collective bargaining.

“Everytime you go into negotiations, there’s going to be quite a lot of speak about monetary accountability,” he stated. “The issue with these arguments is our funds are clear, however we’ve no perception into not solely the bottom wage however full compensation members of senior administration are making. We’ve had another considerations about expenditures and we simply needed to get a way of what we we’re coping with.”

Within the FFOIP request, the UPEIFA requested all contracts, invoices, receipts, agreements and communications associated to the hiring, renewal, employment, remuneration and retirement of senior administrative employees on the college.

Arfken stated after the college ran over the time allotted for it to reply to the request, he emailed UPEI’s privateness officer, asking in the event that they have been declining the request. Two days later, on Aug. 8, the wage grid was launched.

On Aug. 11 although, the college responded to the request, and equipped 49 pages of paperwork, which included the employment agreements for Keefe, Katherine Gottschall-Cross and Greg Naterer, in addition to emails and correspondences about management modifications.

Nonetheless, a lot of the particulars in these employment agreements have been redacted. The doc additionally included a fourth employment settlement, however it was solely redacted. Not one of the agreements offered included particulars about salaries.

By the numbers

• UPEI’s interim president Greg Keefe was supplied the common wage of eight comparator universities within the area – $366,500 a yr.
• Of the 867 employment positions at UPEI, 270 positions make greater than $100,000 a yr.
• Of these 270 positions, 178 make between $100,000 and $149,999 a yr, together with some full, affiliate and assistant professors, librarians, directors and different miscellaneous positions.
• 83 positions make between $150,000 and $199,999 a yr, together with some deans, affiliate/assistant deans, full and affiliate professors and senior directors.
• Solely 9 positions make between $200,000 and $299,999 a yr, together with the vice-presidents, some deans and affiliate deans, full professors and senior directors.

Upon trying up employment agreements at different universities across the Maritimes, SaltWire Community was capable of finding a lot of them included the agreements in full on their web sites, together with the University of New Brunswick, Dalhousie University and Memorial University, amongst others.

SaltWire Community contacted UPEI for touch upon why the knowledge was redacted. In an emailed assertion, a spokesperson for the college stated, “Any data that has been redacted is in relation to obligations discovered inside the act by way of defending privateness.”

Arfken stated he intends to carry the redactions earlier than the privateness commissioner for assessment and is assured lots of the redactions is not going to stand. Nonetheless, he stated getting an order for that data will doubtless take time.

“My query is, why, if (UPEI) is dedicated to accountability and transparency, do we’ve to attend till the privateness commissioner orders them to provide it?” he stated. “They’ll see the provision of different contracts for college presidents and different directors. They’ll produce it proper now.”

Arfken stated offering data comparable to expenditures and employment particulars can be a very good first step towards true transparency and accountability and famous that UPEI has solely been a part of the FOIPP laws since 2019.

“It’s solely been a number of years, so we’re solely now seeing (data being launched),” he stated “We’re taking steps in the fitting route. On this case, we bought some (data) due to the strain, for my part, of a legally required disclosure. Had UPEI not been beneath the FOIPP laws, we wouldn’t even have gotten that far.”

Cody McEachern is a enterprise reporter with the SaltWire Community in Prince Edward Island. He will be reached by e-mail at [email protected] and adopted on Twitter @CodyInHiFi.