We obviously were busy last week and didn’t have a lot of time to post things on the blog.
(Calling all people who have author access out there!?!?!? Anyone home?)
But, we wouldn’t really be following NC State appropriately if we didn’t at least provide one entry about this Mary Easley mess going on in Raleigh. There are so many articles on the story in the local papers that I don’t know which one to link. (Feel free to link insightful perspectives that you find).
NC State has announced that it will review over 800 employee contracts in the aftermatch of the fiasco.
Raleigh, N.C. — Two high-ranking North Carolina State University officials have issued statements explaining why it was necessary to order a review of contracts granting large pay raises during the past six years.
The issue came to light after the university announced that Mary Easley, the wife of Gov. Mike Easley, would get a pay raise of nearly $80,000, or 88 percent, for moving from part- to full-time status.
The University of North Carolina Board of Governors ruled that N.C. State’s process of approving salary increases greater than 15 percent and $10,000 for faculty and staff did not meet the statewide university system’s policy.
“We believed we were using the right approach in the way we were handling fixed-term contracts,” N.S. State Chancellor James Oblinger said in a statement on the university’s Web site.
“As an institution that prides itself on doing the right things in the right way, we are embarrassed by this difference of interpretation and will take immediate steps to ensure that our contract approval processes are consistent with Board guidelines,” Oblinger’s statement continued.
N.C. State Provost Larry Nielsen said the university has “historically … interpreted the Board of Governors’ policy to mean that salary increases associated with fixed-term appointments such as the one offered to Mary Easley” do not need the board’s approval.
University officials will review all fixed-term contracts signed between 2002 and 2008 to determine which need to be turned over to the Board of Governors by its September meeting. Oblinger could not specify precisely how many contracts might be affected.
“It will take a fair amount of labor-intensive analysis, including reviewing each contract individually to determine the nature of the salary increase,” Oblinger said.
No one will every be able to quantify the amount of opportunity cost – represented by misallocated time and money – that this bungling will have on the University. Thank God Jim Valvano is no longer alive or they would find a way to blame him and fire him again.
Of course the one question that nobody has had the guts to ask but we all know is out there — Does Lee Fowler think of Mrs. Easley as “Cougar”?
