University of Kentucky president plans to take pay cut, give money back to employees
University of Kentucky President Eli Capilouto plans to take a 10 percent salary cut over the next year and give that money to an employee assistance fund, the chair of the Board of Trustees announced in an email to the campus Thursday.
That would mean approximately $85,000 of Capilouto’s $838,334 annual salary would go into an employee assistance fund set up by the university’s human resources department. He was the fourth-highest paid university president in the country in 2018.
The announcement comes weeks after many university departments suffered furloughs while undergoing an average 10 percent reduction in cost to help save funds lost because of the pandemic and a coalition of university workers signed an open letter demanding that the university’s top administrators also take pay cuts.
According to UK spokesperson Jay Blanton, the president’s money would go into the university’s CRISIS program, a fund overseen by the university’s human resources department that can dole out money to faculty and staff in emergency situations.
Board of Trustees chairman Robert Vance wrote in the email that the board will work to honor Capilouto’s request while also negotiate a contract extension for the president who has been with the university since 2011 and is about to enter into the final year of his current contract.
“I am extremely pleased that President Capilouto has informed me and the Board of Trustees of his desire to extend his tenure as UK’s 12th president,” Vance wrote. “This coming year – 2020-2021 – is the last year of his current contract. Over the next month, I will work with the President on that extension, the terms of which will be announced at our June meeting.”
Members of the university’s recently created union—United Campus Workers of Kentucky—were “really excited to see Capilouto take the pay cut,” said Lily Bailey, a member of the union and a first year graduate student at the university.
Bailey said the union sees the pay cut as the fruit of an open letter calling for administrative pay cuts and better healthcare coverage for graduate students and a sustained call-in campaign to the president’s office.
According to Jed DeBruin, a union member and Ph. D. student in geography, the call-in campaign occurred Monday, and demanded specifically for Capilouto to take a pay cut.
“We’re really excited to see that our pressuring him worked and we’re excited to see him take a pay cut,” Bailey said, while adding that there are still many other highly paid administrators at the university who could stand to take a cut.
“There’s no better standard than for the President to take a cut and set an example for other administrators,” said DeBruin.
Capilouto and the board encouraged other employees to donate to the fund and promised to announce details on how to donate to the fund shortly. Capilouto requested the pay cut in a letter sent to the board on Thursday. In the letter, the university president praised the work of those at the university through recent years and in the pandemic.
This story was originally published May 21, 2020 at 4:38 PM.