In an American culture where wages determine status and talking about income is taboo, the Internal Tax Revenue Form 990 brings to light the wages of a non-profit’s 11 highest paid employees.
As a non-profit, DePauw University is required to not only file this tax form but also to publish it each year. Three years ago, the form changed from solely being based on compensation, investments and expenditures to adding an organizational governance section. In this section, there are a series of questions that ask about who reviews the information in the form.
“It really became a compliance document,” said Brad Kelsheimer, vice president for finance and administration.
The form asks a series of questions on how the non-profit’s budget and expenditures are reviewed. DePauw is mostly compliant.
“We have really one outlier,” Kelsheimer said, “not every trustee reviews every part of our 990.”
The one part that the entire board does not review is the top donor list. This list is not published publically.
The form publishes total compensation, which includes salary and benefits.
The form from the 2012-2013 academic year, the most recent year for which data is released, shows university President Brian Casey’s salary as $461,819. This is a $45,502 increase from the previous year.
The Board of Trustees determines the president’s salary. It first goes through the Executive Compensation Committee. This committee is chaired by the Chair of the Board of Trustees.
“I know that committee goes through a rather elaborate process in which they compare my salary to those of other presidents in the Great Lakes Colleges Association,” Casey said in an email interview. “I am, of course, not privy to their discussions and their deliberations. I recognize that I work directly for the Board of Trustees, and thus my salary is set by them.”
However the process for the rest of the staff and faculty is slightly different. In the spring, the Board of Trustees set a general salary pool in the budget. The size of that pool determines the general percentage that salaries will be raised. The Vice President for Academic Affairs, oversees this process, which sets faculty salaries. Changes are not made by the VPAA based on performance. The percentage that an individual faculty member will receive in a raise is determined by years of service and time in their position.
Salaries have not yet been set for next academic year.
“We all view employees as a priority asset,” Kelsheimer said.
However, a member of the secretarial staff, whose name has been withheld for fear of job security, doubts that this viewpoint translates to fair wages.
That member makes about $19,000 per year.
“Secretaries and faculty are the ones with daily face to face contact with students, and we get paid a fraction of what they get paid,” the member said. “I am valued at a 20th of the president who gets paid four times what the governor of the state of Indiana gets paid.”
Indiana Gov. Mike Pence makes $111,688 a year.
While there are many demands of the budget, Kelsheimer places special emphasis on making sure that employee compensation is fair. It is the first parameter that Kelsheimer places in the budget.
“As far as an asset that DePauw needs to protect, employees are obviously at the top,” Kelsheimer.
Kelsheimer claims that DePauw is at market value or competitive in their salaries.
“I do feel completely undervalued and unwanted and uncared for,” the member of the secretarial staff said.