Ex-UGA president still among University System’s highest-paid workers

Michael Adams hasn’t been president of the University of Georgia for 2 1/2 years, but he still showed up on a list of the top 10 highest-paid employees of the University System of Georgia in 2015.

The list, compiled by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution using the state's salary database, includes three Georgia college presidents who were each paid more than $1 million in fiscal 2015, which ended June 30.

The state's salary site, Open Georgia, does not include all the outside money that employees receive — such as foundation money funding the big salaries of football coaches.

Excluding coaches, the highest-paid staffers in the University System in fiscal 2015 were: Ricardo Azziz, then-president of Georgia Regents University, now Augusta University, at $1.14 million; Georgia Tech President Bud Peterson, $1.1 million; and Georgia State President Mark Becker, at $1.07 million.

Adams was 10th on the University System list, earning $676,931 as president emeritus. The man who replaced him, Jere Morehead, came in seventh, at $745,994.

While tuition has skyrocketed for students and most University System employees have received little in the way of raises the past four or five years, the top presidents have seen their salaries skyrocket.

Peterson and Becker saw their pay jump 84 percent and 94 percent, respectively, since fiscal 2012, according to Open Georgia. That's largely because the Board of Regents gave both huge "retention" payments last year, hoping to keep them from jumping to other jobs. At least some of the extra retention money came from the schools' foundations.

Azziz’s salary jumped nearly 80 percent, but again, there were extenuating circumstances. Azziz announced his resignation midway through the 2014-2015 school year. Charles Sutlive, a spokesman for the system, said the regents agreed to give Azziz an extra $470,000 payment as he headed out the door that boosted his total take.

Adams was granted two years’ worth of salary when he announced his resignation. Sutlive said Adams, now the chancellor of Pepperdine University in California, was paid “to be a resource and teach an occasional class.”

Such payments to college presidents after they leave office, while controversial, have been common in the University System over the past few decades. One former chancellor was being paid nine years after he left office.

“It’s hard to defend these larger salaries,” said state Rep. Earl Ehrhart, R-Powder Springs, the chairman of the House Higher Education budget subcommittee. “But you need to look at them (salaries) against what is paid in the states we compete with. There needs to be a clear evaluation of them every year.”

Ehrhart said University System Chancellor Hank Huckaby and the regents are cutting back on post-retirement deals for college presidents. But he said changing the culture of the University System takes time.

“It’s like trying to move a giant marshmallow man,” he said. “You put your finger in and it just moves around you.”

Among non-university staffers, the highest-paid were Charles Cary, the chief investment officer of the Teacher Retirement System, at $764,516, and Curtis Foltz, the executive director of the Georgia Ports Authority, at $637,355.

Their pay has jumped 25 percent and 30 percent, respectively, since fiscal 2012. Cary is typically among the highest-paid, in part because, on top of his salary, he is given "incentive pay" based on the system's investments performance. That has garnered some criticism in the past, since he earns about 15 times what the average teacher is paid and regularly saw increases in his compensation while educators received no raises during the Great Recession.

Foltz, who announced Wednesday that he plans to leave his job in June, has traditionally been among the highest-paid state employees.

No. 5 on the list was Huckaby, at $497,000. Huckaby, a former lawmaker and state budget director, is paid less than the man he replaced in 2011, Erroll Davis.