Admin response to LEO FOIA Request: Sorry, What?

In January, LEO made a FOIA request to obtain records of the salaries of the top administrators on each campus, including the  President, Chancellors, Provosts and other key administrators.

As of mid-August, they still have not provided that information, despite legal obligations to do so. In fact, a judge recently ruled against the university in a similar case. (Note that we do not agree with the politics of the complainant in this case, but it’s reassuring to see that the university doesn’t discriminate when withholding information.)

We already know that, based solely on reported salaries, the university continues to hire more administrators, and the salaries of those administrators continues to rise.

As striking as these numbers are, we believe they don't tell the whole story, because the administration hides compensation in bonuses, which they apparently think do not count as salary.

For example, football coach Jim Harbaugh's published salary is $544,500, but his contract shows he makes much more. According to a FOIA request from 2017, his contract shows a base salary of $500,000, but it also includes a $2 million signing bonus, $450,000 for media appearances, tens of thousands of dollars for making various championships...the list goes on (it's fascinating reading, starting on page 3).

We don't care too much about Jim Harbaugh specifically, but this serves as an example that the salaries the university publishes can be a fraction of an individual's total contribution.

We wonder what bonuses are hidden in admin salaries, but the University of Michigan has so far failed to comply with state and federal law to provide this publicly available information.

What are they hiding?

We believe that U of M can afford to pay all of its instructors fair, competitive salaries befitting people with years of teaching experience, many with terminal degrees. If they can't, then what type of operation are they running? Who is responsible for managing the finances of an institution that can't pay university instructors more than 45k/year? You can bet that whoever it is, they've found a way to pay themselves handsomely, all without disclosing it to the public.