With an annual salary of almost $400,000, Dr. A. Lorris Betz, acting president of the University of Utah, is the highest paid college administrator — public or private — in the state.
Is he getting too much money?
Not according to state Commissioner of Higher Education Rich Kendell. None of Utah's college presidents are earning market value, Kendell said.
"These guys would leave if it were just (about) money."
Still, none of the eight remaining people in the Cabinet of former U. President Bernie Machen, who left to head the University of Florida, comes within $100,000 of Betz's salary. After Betz, the highest paid vice president at the U. is vice president for research Raymond Harper, at just over $265,000 per year.
Machen, the person largely responsible for determining Betz's pay scale, drew a base salary of $271,000 and about another $100,000 annually from private sources when he was at the helm.
In contrast, Betz, who has an M.D. degree, earns $397,506 as dean over the U. School of Medicine and senior vice president for health sciences, with nothing from private sources.
When Machen left, Betz accepted the role of acting U. president with no extra pay and no eye on keeping the job. The State Board of Regents is expected to decide on a new president by this summer.
"Money is not an issue" for Betz, Kendell said. "He wants to build a great institution."
Betz has been relieved from his dean duties until a permanent successor to Machen is selected.
And he, like other leaders at Utah's colleges and universities, has been a recruitment target.
Case in point: Since arriving in June 1999, Betz has been tempted by at least two of the country's top 20 schools with $200,000 to $300,000 more in pay and benefits than what he's getting now. He has options.
"That's the sort of things that are out there," Betz said. "People that are successful are in demand."
So, why not leave?
"I like it here," he said. "I'm not done, yet."
Betz is already doing better than average. The national median salary for deans over schools of medicine is $295,000 a year, according to a 2002-2003 salary survey by the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources. The Association of Academic Health Centers lists the median for CEOs of academic health centers at public and private institutions, which usually have a medical school and teaching hospital, as $361,425.
The higher median more closely resembles the pay for the type of dual role Betz carries.
Nevertheless, one thing to consider with those kinds of medians, Betz said, is that the medical school and health sciences division of the U. is in the top 30 percent in the country in terms of size and productivity.
Those who pick up the tab for Betz — about 80 percent of his pay comes from public funds, the rest from clinical revenues at the hospital — say his salary is about right.
Regents chairman Nolan Karras says he doesn't want to "micromanage" the affairs of a school's administration, adding that the president and board of trustees have the best idea of what someone like Betz should make.
Regents, though, dictate what presidents make.
"Dr. Betz has been remarkable in his job," Karras said. "He is in my mind a 10 on a scale of 10."
Sure, Betz's pay is a lot of money, Karras said, and schools should have a "vigorous" policy to make sure administrator pay is in the market, but in his 20-plus years of being involved in higher education as a regent or legislator, Karras says he has never seen the U. health sciences and hospital on better financial footing.
"When someone says, 'Is he worth what he's getting paid,' he's certainly doing a tremendous job," Karras said.
Betz does, after all, fill the shoes of both dean and senior vice president, which Betz says are areas that carry high turnover due to performance expectations.
At the U., no one is complaining about Betz's performance. When he first arrived in Utah, the school of medicine was finishing its fiscal year almost $1 million in the red. At last count, it put $27 million into reserves.
The U. hospital and physician practices together now generate more than $800 million in revenues.
Betz has secured more money for the U. Medical School from lawmakers, noting that revenues from clinical work have been subsidizing the cost of educating students. A new $33 million health science education building is expected to be completed by spring 2005, and the new John A. Moran Eye Center is set to break ground.
In all, Betz has helped put together funding for $300 million in new construction projects, with $38 million of that coming from the state.
"Are we going to be in the national market?" Kendell asked. What Betz has accomplished, he said, has only helped the school as it competes nationally for research and development dollars.
E-MAIL: sspeckman@desnews.com