University administrators receive salary hikes

Seven University officers have been approved for raises between 3.7 and 7 percent after the Compensation Committee of the Board of Trustees reviewed and approved the recommendations at a meeting Tuesday morning. 

The recommendations were made by former Chancellor Mark Nordenberg before he left office and current Chancellor Patrick Gallagher, according to Ken Service, vice chancellor for communications. 

The raises come after a year of prosperity for the University, although raises of 4 percent are the average award for all faculty members each year, the University said in a release.

“The past fiscal year was another period of exceptional progress at the University of Pittsburgh,” Board of Trustees Chairman Stephen R. Tritch, who also chairs the Compensation Committee, said in a University release.

The seven officials’ new salaries are as follows: Patricia Beeson, senior vice chancellor and provost, $420,000, a 7 percent increase from her salary last year; Jerome Cochran, executive vice chancellor, $532,500, which is a 3.9 percent increase; B. Jean Ferketish, secretary of the Board of Trustees and assistant chancellor, $235,000, a 4.4 percent increase; Arthur Levine, senior vice chancellor for the health sciences and dean of the School of Medicine, $847,500, a 3.7 percent increase; Amy Marsh, chief investment officer, $447,500, a 5.3 percent increase; Art Ramicone, chief financial officer, $387,000, a 3.9 percent increase; and Jerome Richey, general counsel, $380,000, a 4.1 percent increase.

To compare, the Chronicle of Higher Education lists the median salary in the U.S. for a vice chancellor with a doctorate degree, such as Beeson and Cochran, at $326,863. The median salary for a dean of medicine such as Levine is listed at $501,350. The median salaries for chief investment and chief financial officers, Marsh and Ramicone, are listed at $227,084 and $231,274, respectively.

“The committee also approved an additional 3.4 percent for Art Ramicone effective in January 2015, bringing his salary to $400,000 at that time,” the release said.

Ramicone will replace Executive Vice Chancellor Jerome Cochran at the end of 2014 on an interim basis, the release said. Cochran’s raise, because he is retiring, will only be in effect until the end of the year. Gallagher also made the recommendation for Ramicone’s raise.

Typically, Service said, raises for University officials are approved in late September. According to the release, the decision to defer the raises until now was made, “so that more complete measures of institutional progress [could be] considered.”

“This has been the practice for a number of years,” Service said. “It makes more sense to have a fuller sense of the state of the University.”

Since these raises have come so late in the year, they will be retroactive, the release said. Service confirmed that those receiving raises will receive a lump sum for the time that has passed so far. 

Service also confirmed that tuition increases for students, among other factors such as the growth of the University’s endowment and an increase in fundraising, contributed to the raises. From the 2013-2014 school year to this year, tuition for in-state students has increased by $632, and by $1,022 for out-of-state students.

“It is the belief of the Board that the raises that were recommended and approved reflect the progress of the University,” Service said. “The University has also been benchmarking salaries [over the last several years] so that they reflect what is being done at other universities.”