At NC State, fired administrators never fade away, they just keep fleecing the taxpayers
Posted June 9th, 2009 at 11:24 AM by Jon SandersAs if the benefits package of Larry Nielsen or the nearly six-figure raise for Mary “Intern Work” Easley weren’t enough, I read this today in the N&O:
Oblinger will return to teaching at the university. He will get a six-month leave at his current salary of $420,000. He’ll then begin teaching again, as a professor of food science at the normal salary for that discipline, Bowles said.
What is this? The penalty for handing out several hundred thousand dollars of taxpayer money for folks to do essentially nothing is, you get several hundred thousand dollars of taxpayer money to do nothing? Nice work if you can find it!
But why do supposedly the state’s smartest people suffer such shenanigans? A blog by NC State alumni and fans, StateFansNation.com, offers a rather credible answer (emphasis added):
Let me tell you what is REALLY going on here – GREED and GAMING the system.
You see, retirement benefits of state government jobs are set differently than the benefits that those of us in the real world have. For example, an employee’s annual pension is set on a formula based on a certain number of years of that employee’s highest pay.
For example, when a state employee retires they get an annual payment of some percentage of their four highest years of compensation. It is NOT the last four years of service or some kind of average of the entirety of service. So, it is in the self interest of these cronies to be able to bring in as much compensation as they can for a certain amount of years at any point in their career. This is one of the reasons that the world of academia is one of the only industries where former leaders can/will remain employed in lesser roles with lesser compensation. They can ride off and build more ‘years of service’ for other various retirement benefits while sitting idly by with tenure and in a world of no demands.
So, when all of these folks – Oblinger, Nielsen, Easley – are angling for more and more money, even for short amounts of time, the impact of that compensation is not only felt by the taxpayers today but also translates into higher retirement benefits for every year of their life after retirement. Courtesy of the North Carolina tax payer.
June 9th, 2009 at 12:13 pm
What did Oblinger do — exactly — before he became chancellor?
If Erskine does not call BS on this, he needs to go too.
June 9th, 2009 at 7:28 pm
That sounds very familiar – the University of Wisconsin system has a fully-vested “backup job” program set up for people who get fired from their first job.
June 10th, 2009 at 9:41 am
At the very least, if you are transitioning from one job to another and there’s a period of non-working preparation involved, you should be paid the lesser of the two salaries. Paying Oblinger $210K to sit around on his ass is moronic. Someone should chronicle all of his comings and goings so that we can all see what we are getting for our $210K.
June 12th, 2009 at 10:18 am
[...] Criminy, what would be one of the worst ways for a major research university to act after a whirlwind of departures brought about by a governor finagling his wife a six-figure sinecure on the brink of his leaving office while engaging in a host of shenanigans with a university trustee — i.e., political patronage run amok? [...]
December 30th, 2009 at 12:15 pm
[...] saying this candidate’s list is the best ever, trust us? Have they earned that trust? The disgrace that was James Oblinger, who was the secret choice by a search committee that had signed confidentiality agreements, speaks [...]
January 6th, 2010 at 3:46 pm
[...] we have made our choice, and only then will we tell you who he is (just like last time — boy, was that guy a disaster). Our choice is scared out of his wits of public scrutiny, the poor dear (just like last time). We [...]