Editor’s Note: Thank you for your interest in the Daily Wildcat’s annual UA Salary Database. The data in this story, first published in March 2019, is for the 2018-19 fiscal year. Please visit the updated 2019-20 database, published in July 2020.
According to the 2018/19 University of Arizona salary database, the university has spent $862 million on salaries for over 12,000 faculty and staff members. Here are some of the most important takeaways from the 2018/2019 Salary Database.
Highest paid employees statistics
According to the database, the four highest-paid employees are all males making over $850,000 a year.
The two highest-paid employees are head basketball coach Sean Miller and head football coach Kevin Sumlin, who make $2.3 million and $1.6 million, respectively. Out of the total salary expense, 2.5 percent was spent on employees in the athletics department.
Outside the athletics department, the highest-paid employees are President Dr. Robert Robbins and Dr. Michael Dake, the senior vice president of health science, who both make $875,000. Robbins’ salary increased by $75,000 this year.
RELATED: Campus Briefs: Robbins’ pay raise, football times set, and Title IX update
The highest-paid woman is Dr. Leigh Neumayer, department head of surgery at the UA School of Medicine. She is the fifth highest-paid person, making $744,333.
Changes in the budget
In 2018, the Arizona Board of Regents released a personnel report showing there was a planned increase of 20.9 percent for the 2019 fiscal year for all classified staff.
The amount of money that the university spent on salaries has increased by about five percent from last year.
This year the UA spent just over $921 million on employee salaries. This is an increase from the $875 million spent last year.
16.8 percent of all employees are paid $100,000 or more. This number has decreased from the 19.7 percent since last year.
There has also been an increase in the number of UA employees by 3.6 percent. The number went from 12,124 employees to 12,564 employees.
The average salary for employees in the athletics department differs from the average salaries of the other employees. The average salary for athletics employees is $104,338.43, whereas the average salary for all the other employees is $72,782.50. This is according to the base salaries, not accounting for bonuses, benefits, etc.
Pay Lawsuits
There have been several lawsuits against the Arizona Board of Regents for alleged gender-based pay discrepancies, which claim males get paid more than females for the same positions and levels of experience. There are 18 females in the top 100 highest paid employees.
In January 2018, former University of Arizona Honors College Dean Patricia MacCorquodale filed a class action lawsuit against the board for $2 million for widespread gender pay discrepancies.
RELATED: MacCorquodale update: When Title IX goes to court
Last year on Nov. 29, Katrina Miranda filed a lawsuit against the board for lack of equality and breaking Title IX, which makes it illegal to pay people less based on their gender and to discriminate against someone based on sex in any federally aided education institution. This class-action lawsuit is being filed on behalf of other female professors.
According on the lawsuit case file, Katrina Miranda is suing the board of regents and the Biochemistry and Chemistry Department for alleged gender pay discrepancies.
According to the file, “Through publicly available salary information, Dr. Miranda learned that she has been underpaid by $9,000 to $36,000 per year from 2016 to 2018 alone compared to her male colleagues who have similar or lesser seniority and performance.”
To learn more about UA salaries, check out the 2018-2019 salary database yourself and let us know what you find.
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