Legislative committee reviews NWACC salaries

Several members of the Higher Education Subcommittee of the Arkansas Legislative Council met Thursday in Little Rock with officials from NorthWest Arkansas Community College to discuss recent raises given to high-ranking administrators.

Six administrative employees received a total of more than $93,000 in raises this fiscal year prompting the Higher Ed subcommittee to investigate. The college provided a list of employees receiving raises between July 1 and April 6 to the subcommittee for the meeting.

Rep. Johnnie Roebuck, D-Arkadelphia, co-chair of the subcommittee, said some administrators had received increases in their pay of up to 35%, putting two administrators at 25 percent about the line item max for their state-appropriated position. Most of the faculty who received raises were given a two percent increase.

“The average from the bottom is faculty received two percent, non-faculty made 10 percent, while the average administrator made 18 percent,” Roebuck said
Sen. Sue Madison, D-Fayetteville, referred to Arkansas code 6-63-609 that allows schools to pay highly qualified personnel at or above the appropriated maximum.

“The code was originally written to allow institutions to pay academic personnel above line item, not administrators,” Madison said.

Dr. Becky Paneitz, president of NWACC, said the faculty are the highest paid of all two-year colleges in Arkansas. Alex Vasquez, chairman of the NWACC board, said the faculty are involved in the decision making processes at the College.

“We do have a faculty senate and the faculty senate president is someone that I know Dr. Paneitz confers with on a regular basis,” Vasquez said.

Roebuck asked Paneitz why no faculty were paid over line maximum.

“We have a faculty scale, there’s no way unless you topped out at the scale, which then gets you out of sync with that salary scale to do a 25 percent line item max,” Paneitz said.

Madison said she next wants to meet with NWACC personnel about several students who left the college involuntarily.

“I’m very concerned about that,” she said. “And we need to stop this wisdom of having so many highly paid administrators.

Paneitz announced earlier this week she will retire from the college in June 2013. Paneitz will retire after 10 years, a time commitment she made when first hired.