Pastides to become USC’s $1 million man

The University of South Carolina’s trustees voted Friday to raise President Harris Pastides’ pay to more than $916,000 for this school year.

Trustees unanimously recommended the USC Foundation raise Pastides’ supplemental compensation – paid out of privately raised money – by $100,000 to $603,800 a year. That raise already has been approved by the foundation.

The foundation’s compensation is on top of Pastides’ taxpayer-paid salary of $312,530, which will remain the same.

The board also approved a future raise and bonuses that would lift Pastides’ pay to more than $1 million a year if he stays at USC past 2017.

In proposing the raise, USC trustees Chairman Gene Warr lauded Pastides’ eight years as president, adding, “If you want to keep him at your school, and, of course, we want to keep him at ours, you need to make adjustments sometimes.”

Warr said Pastides’ pay still is a bargain given that he is president of USC’s 32,800-student Columbia campus and its 13,580-student statewide system.

Other schools – including Texas A&M, Alabama and Tennessee in the Southeastern Conference – pay salaries for both system chancellors and presidents of the main university campuses.

“By choosing to combine these two significant leadership roles into one position, we are saving money,” Warr said in a statement.

Pastides, 62, told the board, “I would have remained a Gamecock as long as I could.” But he called the board’s “endorsement” a “shot in the arm,” entering the new school year.

“To know that they’d like me to stay here and end my career here” is “far more important than the raise,” he said.

Pastides is the second-longest-serving president in the SEC, behind only Auburn University president Jay Gogue. In a release, USC said the average tenure for an SEC president is 3.5 years.

USC trustees also approved raising Pastides’ supplemental pay from the university’s foundation to $703,800 in July 2018 if he stays at the state’s flagship university.

In addition, trustees approved paying Pastides a “retention bonus” of $300,000 in July 2018, and bonuses of $350,000 every year from July 2019 until he steps down.

Pastides already is set to receive a $250,000 bonus in July 2017. His pay for the 2017-18 school year would total nearly $1.17 million, barring any further changes to his compensation.

Pastides’ 2016-17 pay would have ranked sixth nationally among four-year public schools in 2014-15, the most recent data available from the Chronicle on Higher Education. But that data does not account for salary increases other college presidents have received since 2014.

Pastides’ total salary of $635,548 during the 2014-15 year ranked 38th in the country, according to Chronicle of Higher Education data. Rena Khator, president of the University of Houston and its system, topped the 2014-15 highest paid list at $1.3 million.

Clemson University President Jim Clements is paid $789,310 a year, plus $25,000 from a deferred compensation plan. Clemson is smaller than USC and Clements is less tenured than Pastides. (Pastides and Clements also make far less than their schools’ head football coaches.)

Warr said Pastides’ new salary ranks fifth among SEC presidents.

Warr praised Pastides for leading USC through the Great Recession and the ensuing funding cuts just after taking the job as president in August 2008. Now, Warr said, USC has its largest and most academically gifted student body ever.

“We are as strong as we have ever been,” Warr said. “This compensation package is hard-earned and well-deserved.”

In a news release, the trustees attributed several accomplishments to Pastides, including:

▪  The creation and growth of USC’s Palmetto College and other online initiatives

▪  Research partnerships with Fortune 500 companies, including IBM and Boeing

▪  The launch of the Palmetto Health-USC Medical Group

▪  The Carolina Promise fundraising campaign, which raised more than $1 billion for the school

▪  The growth of USC’s endowment to more than $625 million

This story was originally published August 19, 2016 at 12:31 PM with the headline "Pastides to become USC’s $1 million man."