Vice-chancellors' pay packets infuriate staff

By STACEY BODGER and NZPA

The heads of most New Zealand universities received pay increases of 8 to 16 per cent last year, while academic staff had to settle for less than 2 per cent.

Most vice-chancellor salaries grew by $20,000 to $30,000, compared with rises of around $1500 for professors, the top level of academic staff.

The gap has angered the Association of University Staff (AUS), which says it is proof that the Government is trying to run universities like businesses.

State Services Commission figures show that the country's highest-paid vice-chancellors, Otago's Dr Graeme Fogelberg and Canterbury's Professor Darryl Le Grew, are in a salary band of between $290,000 and $300,000.

Auckland University's Dr John Hood, who began part-way through the year, makes between $285,000 and $297,000, just above the salary of former Victoria head Professor Michael Irving.

Those salaries are higher than that of Christine Rankin, Department of Work and Income chief executive, who was paid $240,000 to $249,000 in the year to June.

Vice-chancellor salary increases compare with an average 9.5 per cent pay rise for public-sector chief executives.

Their packages are set by university councils and must be approved by the State Services Commission.

AUS executive director Rob Crozier said the tertiary sector was not rewarding its "real heart."

"That is the teachers and researchers - the people who are meant to attract students in the first place ... but are now the peasant workers."

Mr Crozier said Massey University staff would today begin negotiating for a 1.7 per cent pay increase. Waikato University staff this year received a rise of 1.5 per cent.

"We're falling so far behind other countries that it's getting impossible to compete for staff," he said.

The AUS was working towards a national campaign next year to try to make the Government take a "serious look" at academic salaries.

But Lindsay Taiaroa, executive director of the Vice-Chancellors Committee, said vice-chancellors controlled budgets of up to $400 million and oversaw up to 2000 staff.

"In some respects their positions are more important to the country's future than the profitability of our major enterprises," Mr Taiaroa said.

The salaries were much lower than for equivalent private-sector positions.

Only Waikato University vice-chancellor Professor Bryan Gould's salary of $240,000 to $249,000 was unchanged.

The highest-paid polytechnic head, making up to $219,000, was Dr John Hinchcliff of the former Auckland Institute of Technology, which gained university status in January.

The university salary gap reflected findings in the annual PricewaterhouseCoopers remuneration survey, which showed that bosses' pay rises over the past year were on average double those given general staff.

Chief executives of medium-sized companies and general managers of large companies increased their fixed remuneration by 3.5 per cent, while pay to general staff increased by 1.8 per cent. The consumer price index rise for the period was 3 per cent.

Fixed remuneration includes base salary plus benefits, valued on a cost to employer basis.

The survey of 200 companies and organisations for the 12 months to September found middle management and specialist/technical staff 3.4 per cent better off.

The figure for senior management of small organisations was 2.8 per cent.

The previous year, chief executive officers of medium-sized companies and general managers of large companies increased their fixed remuneration by nearly 5 per cent.

General workers' remuneration increased by 1.4 per cent in that time.

Medical insurance and telephone allowances have become less common as perks.

Companies predicted that their base salary payrolls would increase by 2.9 per cent on average to September 2001.

The average rise over the past 12 months was 3.3 per cent.