Hego is looking for a pay rise

Stargal · 07-01-2007 06:49AM #1

Despite currently earning €205,000 per year, John Hegarty is looking for a pay rise of €135,000 because of his "mental horse-power", "emotional intelligence" and my own personal favourite, "street smart problem-solving skills". This would take his yearly salary up to €340,000.

He made the application for the pay rise along with the heads of the six other universities in the country.

Oddly enough, they make no mention of the chronic and severe underfunding that has led to massive cuts across the board in most of the universities.

Instead, they focus on how a CEO of a company the size of one of the universities would be earning a lot more than they are now.

If the role of Provost had changed massively in the last few years and led to a hugely increased workload, then I could possibly, grudgingly accept this. However it hasn't. The Provost does exactly what every Provost before him has done - schmooze potential donors for money, chair meetings, attend social events, allow the people directly under him to run things and enjoy living in No. 1 Grafton Street. Oh, and make the most of the services of his personal butler too.

Universities aren't companies, and Hegarty and his pals at the other ones should stop trying to treat them as if they are.

Slight aside: DCU is the only university I could see actually bringing in someone from the private sector to be the next president. Although by the way things are going, Trinity may not be too far behind.

Taken from the Irish Independent, Friday Jan 5th

Because we're worth it: Profs want €135,000 rise for 'mental horse-power'

THE country's seven university presidents are seeking a pay rise of up to €135,000 each.

They believe the 55pc pay rise would reward their unique "mental horse power", "emotional intelligence" and "street smart, problem-solving skills".

Details of their major pay claim are revealed in a confidential submission to the Review Body for Higher Remuneration in the Public Service.

The presidents, who are currently paid between €186,000 and €205,000, want a salary of at least €320,000 a year.

They say their role has moved from that of being an educator. "It is now more akin to that of the corporate chief executive who must develop and drive strategically and position their businesses to grow and be ethnically and effectively managed and led."

The "reward philosophy" for the post must be "robust" enough to continue to attract candidates of the calibre required, the submission says.

The Irish Independent has seen a copy of the university chiefs' 25-page joint claim, which was submitted some months ago by the Irish Universities Association. It was prepared with the assistance of an outside HR consultant.

The document is laced with management speak such as "win-win partnerships", "extending people's line of sight", "step-change" and "rewarding individual's on-going value" with base pay, variable pay or bonus pay.

It lists many arguments for addressing the "slippage" that has occurred in the presidents' salaries in comparison with the private sector and university presidents abroad.

There is no reference in the document to the fact that three of the seven university heads live on campus - in UCD, Trinity and DCU. Both the TCD Provost Dr John Hegarty and UCD President are by statute to live on the college grounds.

Already the three top paid university presidents - at TCD, UCD and UCC - earn more than government ministers who get €199,000. If their claim is conceded it would put their salaries ahead of that of the Taoiseach Bertie Ahern who is currently earning €252,000.

Secretary generals of government departments and Garda Commissioner Noel Conroy earn a salary of €192,000 since last June and there was an outcry some months ago when it emerged that five senior Health Service Executive advisors are earning up to €202,000 each for just 135 days work a year.

The seven heads earn almost twice as much as a TD whose salary starts at €90,770 but who gets more based on the length of service.

They are also far ahead of their own academic staff. The best paid professor in UCD earns €136,299 at the top of the scale.

As well as pressing for a substantial pay rise, the association eventually wants individual governing bodies to set up remuneration committees to decide on the reward for each university head.

"This opportunity to better align the pay of University Heads and send a powerful message that reward demands delivery and performance is critical to the success of Government policy in the third and fourth level sectors.

"It is also critical to recognise that the leadership positions in this sector are unique within the Irish public sector in that applicants for the posts will have international competition for competitively renumerated positions and performance of their institution and consequently their leadership is benchmarked internationally," it added.

Agent Smith · 07-01-2007 07:04AM

you wernt complaining when he gave you your award....

07-01-2007 07:40AM

+135,000 for House 1, -135,000 divided amongst the rest of the college.... to be honest, Hego charges Trinity enough through getting his butler to bring over his dinner every day from the 1592. Perhaps there's a problem between what Provost means in the Irish sense and what is means in the American sense (i.e. second in command)?

Stargal · 07-01-2007 07:58AM

agent smith wrote:

you wernt complaining when he gave you your award....

That's one of the most useless responses I've ever seen on boards. No, I didn't complain to him about his plans for a future salary hike when he presented me with an award almost two years ago. Mea culpa.

Myth wrote:

+135,000 for House 1, -135,000 divided amongst the rest of the college

But to play devil's advocate for a moment, €135,000 could make a massive difference to one of the smaller schools/departments struggling to survive under ARAM.

Thirdfox · 07-01-2007 10:16AM

How's ARAM coming along? And the plans to alter the schols? (Been away from college so don't know what's happening in Ireland).

AMHRASACH · 07-01-2007 11:22AM

. . in a competition for the most venal, look no further . .

europerson · 07-01-2007 01:32PM

I thought Emma O'Kelly's report on this on RTÉ News last night was hilarious. She completely slagged the "heads" off for their use of buzzwords.

Edwardius · 07-01-2007 03:24PM

Mental horsepower? I think his previous job required more mental effort than the current one. Besides how much "street smart problem solving" ability is required to kiss ass and have your picture taken? on another note, where do retired provosts go?

BessBoy · 07-01-2007 03:28PM

stargal wrote:

Oddly enough, they make no mention of the chronic and severe underfunding that has led to massive cuts across the board in most of the universities.

Who they? The IUA? The journalsiths?

Dont you mean "oddly enough, to make a headline and to trivialise an issue, our journalists picked and chose from bits and pieces of the claim. We for sure couldnt be bothered to put the full case here, because it would cut into the horoscopes."

I rather doubt that in a 25 page pay claim the IUA heads forgot to note that due to the scandelous underfunding of the area they are forced to act as professional menicants.

Andrew 83 · 07-01-2007 04:04PM

BessBoy wrote:

I rather doubt that in a 25 page pay claim the IUA heads forgot to note that due to the scandelous underfunding of the area they are forced to act as professional menicants.

I also rather doubt that their 25 page claim contains any acceptable reason which would justify a salary of 320,000 euro, nor of their existing salary for that matter.

Edwardius · 07-01-2007 04:14PM

Still though, I'm not sure how we're to decide how much they "deserve" to be paid and seeing as the combined requirements and responsibilities of such a job aren't exactly commonplace in other lines of work I think it's an area in which very few people are sufficiently informed to comment. Especially if most of us haven't read the report.

BessBoy · 07-01-2007 04:16PM

Andrew 83 wrote:

I also rather doubt that their 25 page claim contains any acceptable reason which would justify a salary of 320,000 euro, nor of their existing salary for that matter.

Your choice to think that, fair enough. But, in this case lets defer to ignorance - nobody here has seen the report, and if you believe journalsiths report the truth, thats fine too....
I kinda think that 300k aint too bad for a CEO of a large corporation, which is what TCD/UCD/insert here is nowadays, decry that if you wish but its a fact.

Pet · 07-01-2007 06:57PM

That's one of the most useless responses I've ever seen on boards. No, I didn't complain to him about his plans for a future salary hike when he presented me with an award almost two years ago. Mea culpa.

Lol, sliiiice!

Crash · 07-01-2007 07:09PM

you know, on the thing about it being the most useless post, I'd consider AgentSmith has 6769 other prime contenders, to be honest.

Nietzschean · 07-01-2007 07:34PM

BessBoy wrote:

Your choice to think that, fair enough. But, in this case lets defer to ignorance - nobody here has seen the report, and if you believe journalsiths report the truth, thats fine too....
I kinda think that 300k aint too bad for a CEO of a large corporation, which is what TCD/UCD/insert here is nowadays, decry that if you wish but its a fact.

Em not really, there is far more risk involved in being the CEO of a large corporation, job/litigation and so on...

The whole sham of are we doing ARAM, arn't we, lark would get any CEO of a company fired. And the benefit in kind value of having the gaff he does should be removed from his salary, at rent rates for that street his rent would be what 100k ? more?

Crash · 07-01-2007 07:57PM

Job security with very few outgoings - I'd do provost tbh.

Stargal · 07-01-2007 08:46PM

Nietzschean wrote:

Em not really, there is far more risk involved in being the CEO of a large corporation, job/litigation and so on...

The whole sham of are we doing ARAM, aren't we, lark would get any CEO of a company fired.

QFT. If Hego wants to pretend like this is the private sector then he should be subject to the same checks and balances that any other CEO would be - performance-related pay, risk of the position being terminated if performance is unsatisfactory and accountability, among other things.

BessBoy wrote:

But, in this case lets defer to ignorance - nobody here has seen the report, and if you believe journalsiths report the truth, thats fine too....

I'm not sure about journalsiths, but in cases like this where the factual contents of a report are well, reported on, yes, I do believe that journalists report the truth. What part of the article are you actually questioning? A submission was put forward to the Review Body for Higher Remuneration in the Public Service. In it, the boys are looking for more money. They've justified it using management-speak. Seems remarkable straightforward to me - however it sounds like you have some intriguing conspiracy theory just waiting to be put forward so do fill us in.

BessBoy wrote:

I kinda think that 300k aint too bad for a CEO of a large corporation, which is what TCD/UCD/insert here is nowadays, decry that if you wish but its a fact.

No darling, it's not a fact.

No matter how much Hego, his mates and BessBoy want to stick their fingers in their ears, bang their feet on the ground and pretend like it isn't happening, the fact is that this isn't the private sector and Trinity isn't a large corporation. In the future, this might change, but right now Trinity is a university and one that is suffering under half-assed management strategies that focus on money-making rather than - god forbid - research, learning and the pursuit of knowledge.

Troglodyte · 07-01-2007 09:05PM

&#231 wrote: »

Job security with very few outgoings - I'd do provost tbh.

The strategic placement of the word "the" would liven up that post no end.

ApeXaviour · 07-01-2007 09:25PM

stargal wrote:

No darling, it's not a fact.

No matter how much Hego, his mates and BessBoy want to stick their fingers in their ears, bang their feet on the ground and pretend like it isn't happening, the fact is that this isn't the private sector and Trinity isn't a large corporation. In the future, this might change, but right now Trinity is a university and one that is suffering under half-assed management strategies that focus on money-making rather than - god forbid - research, learning and the pursuit of knowledge.

Thank you... for wording that so much better than I could

BessBoy · 07-01-2007 10:59PM

Nietzschean wrote:

And the benefit in kind value of having the gaff he does should be removed from his salary, at rent rates for that street his rent would be what 100k ? more?

It is, through BIK taxation, at a fair market value rent imputation.

Agent Smith · 08-01-2007 01:03AM

i'm sorry, it was late.... and i was tired

no disrespect intended

Stargal · 08-01-2007 03:45AM

Ok. Thanks.

nikolaitr · 09-01-2007 10:04PM

This is crazy. Just think about what he already recieves

He already earns about 7 times the national average industrial wage.
He gets free rent is a property that is probably worth about 100,000 in rent a year
Presumably he recieves travel and other expenses including food and entertainment.
This along would probably add up to 300,000 in costs for the college.

Asking for a 50% increase in his salary is just greedy when the college has fundng problems and needs to improve its placings on the world stage.

Some say that 100,00 in the whole scheme of things is nothing but by my calculations it would be enough to keep the libraries in trinity open to full hours on the weekends. It is joke that trinty is a National Library yet it is not open fully on the weekends when libraries in UCD and RCSI are.

prothalamium · 11-01-2007 12:35AM

Kind of odd the way Hegarty's looking for a pay rise, yet a truly amazing lecturer from the film department has just had to leave re: lack of funds.

That's "street smart problem solving", yep.

11-01-2007 01:09AM

Who?!

prothalamium · 11-01-2007 11:24AM

Myth wrote:

Who?!

I don't feel comfortable naming names. The victim of the situation hasn't expressed any desire to publicize this. I like my lecturers and don't really want to embarrass anybody who doesn't deserve to be.

Something should be done about this, though. I'm just not sure how to go about it.

12-01-2007 02:50PM

From the Irish Times.

UNIVERSITY PRESIDENTS' PAY

*

Madam, - Now that the presidents of Irish Universities wish to be considered as CEOs of business enterprises and paid accordingly, one presumes that:

1.Academic councils will henceforth become boards of directors that are remunerated accordingly and are empowered to dismiss the CEOs if they do not make sufficient profit for the shareholders (i.e. the students and staff).

2.Professors and heads of department will become senior managers and therefore, like the presidents, can expect to receive large salary increases.

3.Lecturers will become managers, and also expect to be paid accordingly.

In these changing times, clearly scholarship, basic research and teaching are unprofitable. How Cardinal Newman must be turning in his grave! - Yours, etc,

BRIAN E. LEONARD, Emeritus Professor of Pharmacology, NUI Galway.

Stargal · 12-01-2007 02:59PM

Good letter.

Andrew 83 · 12-01-2007 03:17PM

Myth wrote:

1.Academic councils will henceforth become boards of directors that are remunerated accordingly and are empowered to dismiss the CEOs if they do not make sufficient profit for the shareholders (i.e. the students and staff).

Maybe I should apply for backdated pay for my year on academic council?

On a serious note that's a very good letter.

DrIndy · 12-01-2007 03:36PM

€135,000!

Hah!

He's got plenty of perks already - it should be given as an incentive to head hunt a replacement rather than as a gift to someone who cannot be removed for a ten year term.

The man needs a pineapple or two extracted from his ass.

John · 13-01-2007 03:57AM

I'll do it for half the current wage and put the education first.

Hego is looking for a pay rise

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