The Senate Committee on Appropriations and Budget questioned the marked increase in salary allotted to the new president of the University of the Virgin Islands during UVI’s budget hearing Thursday.
Outgoing President LaVerne E. Ragster’s current salary is approximately $161,000, while the incoming president, David Hall, has been offered $315,000, a salary almost double Ragster’s.
UVI Board of Trustees chairman Alexander A. Moorehead testified that the two final candidates for the presidency were earning salaries much higher than Ragster’s and the board needed to offer a competitive salary in order to hire a new president. Because UVI did not have enough money set aside in its budget to actually fund the increase in salary, a personal donation of $150,000 was made by UVI board member and local businessman Donald S. Sussman to cover a portion of Hall’s salary for the first year.
In fact, Ragster touched on this very subject in her testimony to the committee, saying, “The university’s inability to maintain salaries equitable to the market makes it very difficult to recruit and retain faculty and staff.”
In her final presentation as president of UVI, Ragster thanked the senators, both present and past, for the support given to the university during her tenure. Senator Samuel Sanes said, ”You can evaluate a society by the efforts it makes to provide higher education.”
Ragster presented senators with a budget request of $34.5 million for fiscal year 2009-2010, a decrease of almost $4 million from last year’s request.
A breakdown of requested funding is as follows: $30, 019,056 for general operating requirements, $3,192,205 for debt service, $300,000 for SBDC local matching requirements, $184,243 for veterans’ tuition requirements, $37,773 for senior citizens’ tuition requirements, $176,723 for National Guard tuition requirements, $240,000 for valedictorian and salutatorian scholarships, $250,000 for academic and cultural awards endowment and $100,000 for community engagement and lifelong learning.
Senators requested that UVI provide them with a detailed accounting of all revenue sources, a breakdown of the amount of interest earned on endowments, and the amount of money UVI has spent on legal fees in the administration’s past efforts to prevent faculty from unionizing.
David M. Zumwalt, executive director of UVI’s Research and Technology Park, asked committee members for an appropriation of $700,000 for operating expenses for FY2009-2010.
RTPark is affiliated with UVI but operates as a separate entity, governed by a seven-member board of trustees. Three of those board members are selected by the governor and four are selected from among members of UVI’s board of trustees.
In a progress update, Zumwalt testified that RTPark has secured three strategic partners who will bring over $10 million in new capital investment in the next few years. The three partners are Adveniat, the local subsidiary of Maryland-based Baltimore Technology Park, Tropical Tower, a local company founded by Cornelius Prior Jr., and JetPay, a credit card processing company.
“I am very concerned about Tech Park,” said Sanes. “It was initiated in 2002 and here we are in 2009, still waiting for the economic stimulus it was supposed to bring. We have been putting money into that park and have gotten nothing in return.”
When questioned about revenues generated in 2009, Zumwalt told the committee the RTPark now has revenues totaling $325,000.
Zumwalt assured senators that the RTPark would be fully self-sufficient by 2011.
