State Sen. Eric Griego is taking time from his hectic schedule to send a message to UNM President David Schmidly:
“In a bad economy where we’re asking students to pay more tuition, how do you justify two or three hundred thousand dollar salaries for 20 folks?”
Griego introduced “Good Fiscal Judgment for UNM Salaries” to be voted on by the New Mexico Legislature. It’s called a “joint memorial,” so it’s not a mandate. It urges Schmidly and the Board of Regents to consider cutting pay to 20 or so administrators, who, as reported Jan. 15 by the Albuquerque Journal, make $200,000 to $300,000 a year.
“Strictly speaking, the Legislature doesn’t have direct authority managing the University — nor should it,” Griego said. “However, we’re in pretty drastic fiscal times right now. We’re cutting public education. We’re cutting higher education. We’re cutting health care for kids, early childhood. You name it. Every single working and elderly and young New Mexican is having to tighten their belts, and there seems to be one exception to that, and that seems to be the senior management at the University of New Mexico.”
President Schmidly is looking to cut administrative costs in face of the budget deficit, said University spokeswoman Susan McKinsey in an e-mail.
“Long before Sen. Griego drafted his memorial, President Schmidly had shared with the Regents his commitment to restructure the organization and reduce administration in the face of budget reductions,” McKinsey said. “To date, three-quarters of the University’s budget reductions have come from the administrative side, and an active administrative review is underway. But, it is also important to remember that an institution with a complex budget of well over $2 billion requires capable senior leadership in a number of areas in order to operate effectively and efficiently.”
Further, data distributed by Marc Saavedra, director of Government Relations at UNM, places UNM administrators as only six of the 100 highest-paid employees at the University. Instead, 91 are faculty and three are coaches. Saavedra plans to present this data to the Senate Rules Committee in response to Griego’s memorial.
In fact, Saavedra’s data finds 229 of the top 250 highest-paid UNM employees are faculty members. Saavedra’s data also lists UNM administration salaries as 0.73 percent of the state’s appropriation to the University.
However, Griego said the memorial has been well received by his colleagues at the Legislature, but he encouraged members of the UNM community to call their legislators to ensure the resolution is passed by the House and Senate.
“If they continue to keep the pressure on their legislators and the governor, I think it will pass. It’s all in their hands somewhat,” he said. “Unfortunately there’s a lot of political influence on the Board of Regents. The way our system works is you get to be a regent by giving lots of money. A lot of people are running up here and they don’t want to bite the hand that feeds them.”
The memorial will go before the Senate Rules Committee today at 9:30 a.m., and, if it passes, will go to the Senate Education Committee.
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