BOISE, Idaho—Kansas State Provost Duane Nellis said Friday he turned down an offer to become the next University of Idaho president after Idaho’s Board of Education rejected his salary request.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Nellis said he had sought less money at Idaho than what he and his wife, a Kansas State employee, make together at that school, where they earn a combined base salary of $370,354 a year.
“I was not being unreasonable, in my opinion,” Nellis said.
Nellis is paid a yearly base salary of $272,116 as provost and his wife, Ruthie, makes a $98,238 base salary working in institutional advancement, said Kansas State spokeswoman Beth Bohn.
While none of the five finalists announced in January have been publicly offered the top job at Idaho’s oldest public university, Nellis said board leaders extended an offer to him by telephone on Wednesday.
“I told them, given what they were offering me, I was turning them down,” Nellis said.
Board spokesman Mark Browning declined to discuss the salary negotiations with Nellis. He said an official offer to the next university president has to be made as the result of a vote in an open meeting.
Nationwide, median pay and benefits for presidents of public research universities rose 7.6 percent during the 2007-2008 school year to $427,400, according to an annual survey that The Chronicle of Higher Education released in November.
Former Idaho President Tim White was paid $291,912 in his fourth and final year, a salary “substantially below” the average for a research institution of its size and reputation, said Paul Fain, a senior reporter at The Chronicle who researches compensation of university presidents.
“That’s near the bottom,” Fain said. “You’re going to have a hard time getting who you want if you’re in that range.”
For example, the new president of West Virginia University will be paid a base salary of $450,000, Fain said.
“It’s a competitive market and these are difficult people to find,” Fain said. “They have to have clout with faculty members, they have to be able to talk the talk of business and politics, be media savvy and work with major sports programs. They have to wear a lot of hats and wear them well. They are a rare type of person.”
White left the Moscow campus last year for a job at the University of California-Riverside. The UC Board of Regents approved a compensation package that will pay him an annual base salary of $325,000.
The next Idaho president will most likely be offered a base salary similar to what White was being paid when he left, Browning said.
Nellis was one of five finalists selected by a university search committee. The committee recommended two finalists, Nellis and Montana State University Provost David Dooley, visit the northern Idaho school for interviews.
During a visit last month, Nellis assured the Moscow campus he would stick around if the Board of Education picked him.
The university has gone through five leaders, both temporary and permanent presidents, in the past six years.
Ham Shirvani, president of California State University Stanislaus, pulled his name from the search in mid-February after his school’s governing board and members of the community urged him to stay in California.
Now just three finalists remain including Dooley, Don Burnett, dean of the University of Idaho Law School and Larry Penley, former president of Colorado State University.
Dooley earns a base salary of $169,950. Burnett earns a yearly base salary of $207,938, according to the University of Idaho. Penley earned a base pay of $389,000 before resigning last year, according to The Chronicle’s compensation survey.
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