Montana University System top earners get $14K salary bumps

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The top three officials in the Montana University System are earning more than $1.4 million combined as of this summer.

The highest paid, Montana State University President Waded Cruzado, is making $576,300 composed of a salary, $58,864 in deferred compensation and a $150,000 annual retention bonus, according to a budget item approved by the Board of Regents.

Commissioner of Higher Education Clayton Christian is earning the same base salary of $367,436 as Cruzado along with deferred compensation of $55,645. Deferred compensation is money the state arranges to pay at a later date.

University of Montana President Seth Bodnar is earning the same salary plus $52,000 in deferred compensation.

The salaries and deferred compensation amounts represent a 4% increase that reflects raises for other employees and took effect on July 1, 2024. The Board of Regents unanimously approved the raises, including an additional $14,132 in salaries for the top three officials, at their May meeting.

At the meeting, Deputy Commissioner for Budget and Planning Tyler Trevor said the approval was for a group of employees who report directly to the commissioner and require contracts approved by the Board of Regents. A budget item listed 11 personnel.

“The bulk of all of this is enacting the (state pay) plan, which is a 4% increase, which the rest of the 9,000 individuals in the university system will receive as well,” Trevor said; the pay plan is negotiated with unions and approved by the legislature.

Cruzado, at the helm of MSU since 2010, is the only one receiving a retention stipend. The Commissioner’s Office said the Board of Regents first approved it in November 2019 and has approved it annually since then.

At the meeting, none of the Board of Regents members asked questions about the increases for the higher education officials following the presentation by Trevor or the following day prior to the vote.

MSU has been under scrutiny since last fall by the federal Office for Civil Rights, which opened six investigations into discrimination complaints on the Bozeman campus. Complaints are pending, and last month MSU said the feds have issued no findings; MSU could not be reached late Monday for an update.

In a recent email, Galen Hollenbaugh, deputy commissioner of government relations and communications for the Office of the Commissioner of Higher Education, responded to questions about how the Board considers salaries for the top earners.

“Historically, OCHE has used the negotiated State Pay Plan as a data point for the Board of Regents to use as they exercise their discretion when adjusting compensation in the MUS,” Hollenbaugh said.

Hollenbaugh said the Commissioner’s Office also uses a peer analysis to set compensation levels, “typically comparing MSU campuses to institutions with similar mission and size.”

A peer analysis was not included with the Board packet for the meeting, and the Commissioner’s Office did not respond to a request from the Daily Montana to provide one.

In 2021, the median salary for public institutions that grant doctoral degrees was $495,000, according to a salaries survey by the Chronicle of Higher Education.

In recent years, the tenure of a college president has shortened. In 2006, college presidents reported being on the job for 8.5 years on average, but in 2022, they had spent just 5.9 years on the job, according to the most recent survey by the American Council on Education.

In Montana, Bodnar stepped into the presidency at UM in 2018, on the job for more than six years. Cruzado has led MSU for more than 14 years.

The labor market has been shifting since the Covid-19 pandemic as well. However, Hollenbaugh said within the Commissioner’s Office, staff levels have held steady in the last decade, although higher level positions have not.

“During the same 10-year timeframe, every deputy level position within OCHE has seen at least one turnover in staffing due to retirement or for another career option,” Hollenbaugh said in an email.

In December 2023, a faculty member at Tufts University in Massachusetts published a piece on Substack called, “You could not pay me enough to be a college administrator.”

In the piece, also published at least in part in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Daniel Drezner cited as challenges the “volatile mix of knowledge and ignorance” in students; “know-it-all” professors; and nostalgic alumni and donors. He described the job as “thankless.”

“Higher education administrators are paid pretty well, but there is no amount of money in the world that could get me to say ‘yes’ to one of these positions,” wrote Drezner, a distinguished professor of international politics. “Closer observation confirmed that university presidents and deans occupy terrible, no-win positions.”