During the March 16 University of Oregon Board of Trustees meeting, board chair Steve Holwerda advocated for hiring a compensation consultant to review university President John Karl Scholz’s pay.
According to Holwerda, this comes at his own suggestion, but other trustees are aware. Holwerda said that across compensation on campus, the president is where UO is “furthest from the median.”
Holwerda attributed this to “shrewd negotiation” by the firm that was hired to help the university conduct a search for a new president from September 2022 to March 2023.
“We felt we got a great president at a really great price,” Holwerda said. “The timing is never good to bring this up. We’ve gone through the collective bargaining process, we’ve gone through budget cuts, we’ve gone through offering pay increases across the board, but we haven’t at our president level.”
Holwerda recommended investigating the president’s salary, expressing concern that if it kept being ignored that the board would just “hope that we don’t lose our president.” Scholz has made no indication that he is interested in leaving, Holwerda said.
The board chair suggested an outside compensation consultant that would review the structure and pay of the president position. Holwerda said that he believes if Scholz was to leave the university they would be paying “much more” for the next person to fill the seat.
“It doesn’t mean we’re going to increase (Scholz’s compensation), but we’re going to review it,” Holwerda said. “The last thing the University of Oregon needs right now is change at the leadership position.
Discussing a potential salary investigation at the meeting was in an effort to introduce the idea and give people an opportunity to express frustration about using comparable compensation for the president position unlike other positions at the university, according to Holwerda.
Comparable compensation refers to setting similar salary and bonuses by measuring against other institutions of a similar size or mission.
Scholz was hired in 2023, with a contract that includes a yearly base salary raise. Starting July 1 this year, his pay will increase to $792,000 from $769,000.
When asked about timeline, Holwerda said it would take about six months for this consultation, saying there is existing data from both the resource the university used for hiring and collected data on the salaries of other Big Ten Conference university presidents. Holwerda said they may also look into the salaries of presidents of other local universities, including Oregon State University.
According to an investigation by the Indiana Daily Student that compared the base salaries of Big Ten university presidents, Scholz ranks 16th, above only the Purdue University president. If considering his salary raise that will occur in July, it would only shift Scholz above one more school.
UO is currently facing a $25-30 million projected budget deficit in its education and general fund. To address this, the university identified $29.2 million in permanent reductions — including cutting over 100 staff positions and over 50 vacant positions.
