By FITSNews || By now, it should be painfully obvious that the “Great Recession” which is continuing to ravage the U.S. economy has not been felt even remotely by America’s growing government sector – and certainly not by the unicorn-loving hippies who occupy higher education’s increasingly expensive “Ivory Towers.”
This trend has been particularly pronounced in South Carolina, where the government sector has added 1,100 jobs over the last year, while the private sector has shed 60,500 jobs over the same time period.
Anyway, Monday brought fresh national data about the extent to which taxpayer-funded muckety-mucks continue to be shielded from the effects of the longest, most devastating economic downturn in eight decades.
According to a report issued by the Chronicle of Higher Education, salary and benefit packages for the leaders of America’s 185 top public universities rose by 2.3 percent during 2008-09 to a median total compensation of $436,111.
That’s in contrast to annual 7.5 percent increases over the previous four years and a whopping 19 percent increase in 2005, incidentally.
In case you were wondering how the top dogs at South Carolina’s “research universities” stack up, here’s our exclusive report on that subject.
Of course, it’s not just how much money these higher educrats are getting paid that’s the problem, it’s the boneheaded decisions they’re making with much larger amounts of our money …
UDPATE: Why ARE there so many songs about rainbows?!?!?
By Gillon January 18, 2010 at 4:35 pm
Why are you only singling out Higher Education? Compare the salary and benefit packages of leaders of America’s 185 top companies and I imagine that you will see even more disgusting figures. And to quote you, “It’s not just how much money these higher educats are getting, it’s the boneheaded decisions they’re making.” There is no decision that any in higher ed could have made that would even remotely compare in magnitude or deleterious impact on the citizens of this country than the “bonehead decisions” made by the CEOs of companies such as Wachovia, Citigroup, Bear Sterns, General Motors, Merrill Lynch, or Chrysler
to name just a few. So try to get off this anti-government kick, there’s plenty of incompetence in the private sphere as well.
By YouMakeMeFITS January 18, 2010 at 5:38 pm
FITS, I realize you usually have a point you want to make and facts are certainly not going to get in your way or stop you from making them. However, S.C. State employees are hurting and being forced to take mandatory – unpaid – furloughs to make up the budget short falls (that is a paycut by the way). Some agencies, in addition to the furlougs are making pay reductions AND firing long time staffers – the W.C. Commission disbanneded (that means fired) its legal department. And they are not alone, some agencies are trying to raise fees to make up the short falls that haven’t been made up by all of the other measures that are being taken.
By southernmapart January 18, 2010 at 7:45 pm
FITS is appropriate in laying-on the “research” universities, because support for the awful mess we’re in is rendered through know-it-all educat staff with lots of alphabet after their names. Some support comes from privately funded think tanks, but the general sheepish public is more attuned to accepting what the educats promote, and they are allowed their outrageous salaries in support of the corporate rape going on.
Some I know, or deal with, are general dumbasses with little common sense.
By Liberty For Me January 18, 2010 at 8:22 pm
I think the comments by Gillon are pre-programmed socialist diatribes that are downloaded in the sleep of progressives…..”Its all the fault of capitalism”….”Its all the fault of capitalism”..You are getting sleepy..very sleepy. MMUUUAHHHHHH Ha HA
By Rebel January 18, 2010 at 9:19 pm
Many university departments and other state agencies as well are doubling/tripling the workload on their staff, while telling their employees that they are lucky to have a job, so STFU about working on weekends and working well over a 40 hour week, with no chance of merit raises due to pay action freezes and no chance of advancement due to TERI employees being hired back. To hear about these fat educrats counting their ducats with one hand while taking money from tax paying employees with the other hand to waste on mission creep and failed projects is maddening.
By Marvin January 18, 2010 at 10:33 pm
Gillon: you’re right. Lots of idiots in the private sector. But they aren’t spending our money – at least, they weren’t until the politicians gave it to them. Bonehead decisions in the private sector usually lead to bankruptcy. In the public sector, they lead to…what? Our brilliant legislative “leaders” put the universities in charge of “economic development” projects like Innovista. And how’s that working out for us?
The companies you refer to should have been allowed to go under, without our help. Sorry, but that’s what needs to happen. And if we quit funding all that crap, then state government employees who work hard and do serve necessary roles wouldn’t have to take a furlough.
By Cleanhouse January 18, 2010 at 10:51 pm
Take the time to read through the affidavits and other documents at the clemsonlawsuit.com site, and you may realize that “capitalists” — those who bought their way on to the Clemson Board of Trustees and who know nothing about higher education — are the ones who let the administration have its way with massive pay raises for insiders. The “trustees” did nothing to stop Hendrix from operating on a unilateral basis, asking nothing of Barker in the way of accountability. The administration and Board of Trustees have failed the faculty, staff and students alike — they need to move on.
By Wow January 19, 2010 at 5:55 am
Dear YoumakeMe –
The mandatory furloughs wouldnt have happened if the state agencies hadnt over spent or spent less. There would be money left if the state wouldnt retire an employee one day and hire them back the next aka TERI (thus the STATE pays them full salary + more). There are also places where the Sheriffs dept has a full time employee on the solicitors payroll who “moonlights” in the jails and get paid 1.5X his normal salary because its considered overtime.
There is a tremendous amount of waste in every state agency. They are not run as most private companies are run – for profit. Their moto is spend spend spend. When I worked for a state agency at the end of the year when money was not allocated or spent and would be left over – they ordered crap like crazy. They had computers sitting in boxes brand new for months out of fear the left over money would have been taken away.
One solicitors offices every attorney has virtually 3 computers (counting there txt anytime free chatting blackberrys)+ 1 desktop and a laptop. (instead of having 1 laptop and a docking station) – tens of thousands of wasted $$$.
By YouMakeMeFITS January 19, 2010 at 6:26 am
Rebel – if you try to interject facts into the arguement you are going to just upset people.
By Stumpy January 19, 2010 at 8:36 am
Hey Marvin,
You mean that the money the Bank of America and others lost that almost wiped out my stocks and mutual funds wasn’t my money. Damn, whose was it. It’s just a matter of how they get our money whether it is state or private. I do agree with Rebel that there are lots of people in high placed administrative jobs that are TERI employees. Take a look at DSS which is an agency run by Sanfraud.
By baker January 19, 2010 at 9:12 am
Marvin,
I think the point is that — at least at the highest levels — the decisions made by leaders of PRIVATE companies do, indeed, have a huge impact on the public……in fact, often-times a much more profound impact than inefficiency in local or state government.
By political hack January 19, 2010 at 12:03 pm
I find it interesting that no one can come to an agreement about anything anymore these days. It is comparable that it is almost how the powers that be want it: the government is good, private companies and capitalism are bad or vice versa. It is important to know that our current state of economy was brought on by the wonderful ideas of our Federal government wanting “housing reform” and essentially created a market for subprime mortgages because it was “American” to do so, even though China was buying all our government guaranteed affirmative action mortgage pools. This is essentially what they tend to do with Health care. It is merely a front for another means for Wall Street to be able to capitalize on all the debt in the form of insurance policies that will be produced when the Government creates it’s mandatory option of coverage. This will create another market that will probably be able to boom for about 10 years until we have another crash, but by that time we will be at War with China because the “free trade equals liberalization of even the most communist countries” is failing as per the Google pullout. China is only becoming more powerfully oppressive and beefing up its infrastructure and cooking the books big time on all there government run enterprises. Our own government permitted the cooking of the books through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and soon after the private market was able to detect their massive insolvency due to leverage of portfolio of junk mortgages, backed by Uncle Sam, the market collapsed. Why would you want to trust a communist country of it’s solvency when the time comes? Ironically, in this rant it seems to be more evident that we are actually going the way of becoming a socialist state with the likes of China to protect our industries and keep everyone sucking on the government tit, giving away our industries for temporary sustainability. It is a sign our free trade, progressivism, globalisation mind set is a failure, and that very policy is only feeding the beast who will ultimately be the hand of our demise. These same hippies pushing this garbage run our educational system, and it seems that this failed idealogy will continue to be taught to more gullible generations for time to come.
Take a look around, all those “capitalist” companies that are so evil are at the mercy of the laws that the government makes, especially wall street, and they have been running this country for over 100 years. What is good for them will be the path of the nation.