Rao’s salary beats national average

University President Michael Rao might not be in the top 10, but his salary is above average.

The median total compensation for public university presidents was $436,111 in 2008-2009, according to a survey. Rao’s pay package totals about $615,000.

The Chronicle of Higher Education survey found that University of Virginia President John T. Casteen III ranks fourth in the nation at $797,048 and Virginia Tech President Charles W. Steger ranks eighth with a pay package of $732,064. These compensation totals include pay plus benefits.

Rao should not expect a raise anytime soon, though.

As the General Assembly faces a revenue shortfall projected to hit $4.2 billion by 2012, the two-year freeze on salaries for Virginia state employees is not expected to be lifted.

Former Gov. Tim Kaine’s proposed state budget sets annual salaries for presidents of public schools; however, it allows boards of visitors to supplement pay at “a reasonable limit.” Such supplemental pay is to be reported to the Department of Human Resource Management.

The department’s communications manager, Anne Waring, said determining a reasonable limit of supplemental pay is “a judgment call.”

“If a university were questioned by the Governor about an amount, I would expect the university to be prepared to provide justification for the amount,” Waring stated in an e-mail.

Waring said the incomes from outside sources are taken into consideration.

“I would expect salaries paid to presidents in similar, peer institutions to be another factor as well as, obviously, the availability of funds from university endowments,” she stated.

According to a VCU News Center press release, $312,387 of Rao’s salary comes from VCU Health System and private funds.

“We have four funding foundations: the School of Engineering Foundation, the School of Business Foundation, the VCU Foundation and The MCV Foundation,” said John Bennett, the senior vice president for finance and administration. “Most everything in those foundations have been given by donors for specific schools and specific programs for those schools.”

According to Bennett, the salary differences between Rao and other big Virginia universities are not unique to his position.

“In 1998 our faculty were paid, on average, within $3,900 of UVA’s. Now we’re $25,000 below,” Bennett said. “So we’re losing ground, and how that shows up in (students’) experience is the best faculty have other choices. They can go other places where they are paid more. So it comes down to the value of your experience.”

However, though he is not in the top 10, some students still think Rao’s salary is too high—especially because Rao’s $275,000 signing bonus boosted his income for the year to about $890,000.

Last year at a question-and-answer session with Rao in the W.E. Singleton Center for Performing Arts, two students taped a brown paper sign to the auditorium balcony that read, “Hey Mike, use your $890,000 salary to pay 13 professors.”