Leadership from the top down

I've been proud to work for the University of Louisville and its law school. Never more than now. The following news item will explain why.

From the Lexington Herald-Leader, by way of University Diaries and The Periodic Table, Too:

The University of Louisville board of trustees Thursday approved the school president’s request to forgo the triple-digit pay raise or bonus he could have received.

James Ramsey will instead receive a lump sum payment of $700, the same amount other full-time faculty and staff members are expected to receive this fiscal year, according to U of L spokesman John Drees. The lump sum payment will bring Ramsey’s base university salary to $331,918.

Under Ramsey’s contract, he would have been eligible for a bonus of more than $113,000 for the 2007-08 academic year. But Ramsey asked the trustees not to give him any additional money because of the tight economic times.

The board earlier approved a university budget that includes $6.1 million in cuts.

Ramsey’s decision not to have a bonus will effectively drop his status as the highest-paid public university president in Kentucky, a designation that now goes to University of Kentucky President Lee Todd.

Todd was awarded a $95,500 bonus by UK’s board of trustees, increasing his total compensation to $549,510.

My university implemented the pay raise for employees during this extremely tough budget year in an exceptionally fair way. Rather than raising salaries by a particular percentage, which would have put more dollars in absolute terms into the hands of higher-paid employees, the University of Louisville gave a $700 across-the-board raise. That per capita payout has a greater impact on the paycheck of a lower-paid employee than on the paycheck of, say, the law school dean or the president of the university.