Courtesy of Stephens Media, I have on the jump the full text of the letter UCA President Lu Hardin wrote to his Board of Trustees seeking a $150,000 pay bump in the form of deferred compensation over six years. I also have the unsigned memo, bearing the name of UCA administrators, supporting the legality of the arrangement and the legality of keeping it secret.

Well.

Some points.

1) Hardin said he’d been advised by a University of Arkansas attorney that deferred comp for university officials does not require a public vote or disclosure of deferred comp. I doubt this because we’d recently gathered UA deferred comp figures. Indeed, the UA says in this Stephens Media story that they do not hold such matters to be secret.

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2) I’d like to know more about the reference to a new privately funded home for Hardin (although he said he wasn’t interested.) UPDATE: I’m told this was a matter studied by a committee that was contemplating a shuffle of UCA offices — athletic department to Alumni Hall, alumni and foundation offices to the president’s house and a new president’s house built on vacant land nearby. Hardin said it wasn’t a good time for such a move, Trustee Rush Harding recalled.

3) Hardin says his “total package” of $402,300 would be $50,000 — actually $41,000 to $42,000 — below the U of A pay. But this is only if you don’t include his “catchup” $300,000 bonus, paid in May, an acceleration of $60,000 annual deferred comp payments. At least two of those years, at $60,000 per, should fairly be added to his overall compensation, making him pricier than the UA president and UAF chancellor. As a reader has noted in an earlier thread, for all its growth, UCA is not considered at the same level as the UA. (And its faculty is far below the UA in average pay.)

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4) Contrary to what appears on the unsigned memo, I’ve been told Jack Gillean, the VP for administration, did not draft it.

Sorry Yogi. This one isn’t over until it’s over.

COMMENTARY: Brummett recaps and says it’s about “greed and arrogance of power.” Ouch.

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UPDATE: What happens at the UCA press conference and Board meeting tomorrow. The process starts over. Apologies for mistakes, a commitment by the Board and Hardin to do things properly in the future and a plea for redemption from the UCA community. In the short run to intermediate run, a pay increase for Hardin isn’t likely in the cards.

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