Dixon highest paid Pitt official again

Jamie Dixon, Pitt’s head basketball coach, topped the University’s salary rolls in 2009 with… Jamie Dixon, Pitt’s head basketball coach, topped the University’s salary rolls in 2009 with nearly $1.7 million in total compensation.

According to federal tax forms, Dixon topped the list of University employees for the fourth straight year.

The salaries for the Pitt employees are on the Internal Revenue Service forms filed two weeks ago by the University, which can be found on the Office of the Chief Financial Officer website. Tax-exempt, private organizations like Pitt have to report fill out IRS form 990 by May 15 which releases the earnings of their top five non-officer employees as well as other organizational employees.

The forms also include the total amount that University officials receive in non-salary compensation, which is sometimes considerably more than their yearly pay. In Dixon’s case, he received more than $830,000 in incentives in addition to his $690,000 base salary.

Dixon is joined by three other athletic officials in the top four, with former head football coach Dave Wannstedt at No. 2, athletic director Steve Pederson at No. 3 and women’s basketball head coach Agnus Berenato at No. 4.

Associate vice chancellor for global health and dean of the Graduate School of Public Health Donald Burke rounds out the top five, with $464,017.

The form released earlier this month, states Dixon, who’s led the Panthers to the NCAA Tournament in each of his eight seasons as Pitt’s head coach, earned $1,692,852 in total for the year, including performance incentives outlined in his contract.

Wannstedt, who resigned as head coach in December 2010, earned $1,434,331 in total compensation.

Pederson made $599,807 and Berenato earned $495,004 in total compensation.

The filing also includes information on the University’s top-paid administrators. The highest earning University administrators for the year were Chancellor Mark Nordenberg, who took in $691,413 in total compensation, and Dr. Arthur Levine, who earned $803,707 in total compensation as Pitt’s senior vice chancellor for the health sciences and dean of the School of Medicine.

Former Provost James Maher earned $440,215 in total compensation while Executive Vice Chancellor Jerome Cochran and Chief Financial Officer Arthur Ramicone earned $537,099 and $396,339, respectively in total compensation to round out the top five paid university senior officers.

The information on the IRS form was for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2009, but the information was for the calendar year 2008.