LITTLE ROCK — The Arkansas State University system has set aside a $115,600 annual salary for retiring President Les Wyatt to become a professor effective July 1, according to documents released Tuesday.
The documents, obtained under the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act, show an exchange of e-mails in which the salary grew to six figures because Jonesboro campus officials decided it would be a 12-month position, not a 9-month position, although Wyatt’s contract states otherwise.
Wyatt retires as ASU system president June 30. On Friday, the ASU board of trustees voted unanimously and without discussion to reassign Wyatt to a professorship - a position to which he’s entitled by contract.
The board approved reassignments and personnel actions without naming individual employees or their salaries.
After the meeting, Wyatt told a reporter in response to questions that he didn’t know what he planned to do professionally after leaving the presidency June 30.
Documents released by the system office show more detail of Wyatt’s post-presidency role.
His new position will be in the Department of Educational Leadership, Curriculum and Special Education on the Jonesboro campus.
In an e-mail exchange between Lucinda McDaniel, an attorney for the system, and G. Daniel Howard - who will serve as interim chancellor of the Jonesboro campus starting July 1 - Wyatt’s proposed salary grew.
An e-mail May 10 from Howard to McDaniel states that he recommends $86,700 annually, using as a basis thesalary changes made for a former dean of the College of Education once he left his administrative duties and returned to teaching.
The next day, Howard wrote McDaniel that Wyatt’s $86,700 recommended salary “seemed too low for a 12 month full professor salary.” Howard said in the e-mail that he amended his recommendation for Wyatt’s salary to be $115,600 annually to cover 12 months instead of nine.
Wyatt’s contract states that, after leaving the presidency, he “may elect to return to a position as a Professor of Higher Education and Art and receive compensation comparable to that of a nine-month faculty memberof the same rank.”
In addition, the contract states that Wyatt “shall have six months to prepare to reenter the classroom and to re-establish teaching materials and shall be paid during that six month period” at a comparable nine-month faculty member’s pay.
In the documents released by the system office Tuesday, previously undisclosed salaries have been set for the reassignments that the board had approved Friday and announced in May.
The new salaries, effective July 1, are:
Robert L. Potts, $226,330, as interim system president. He is the Jonesboro campus chancellor and currently earns $226,203 through June30.
Howard, $230,727, as interim chancellor of the Jonesboro campus. He now earns $200,000.
Glendell Jones Jr., $204,000, as interim executive vice chancellor and provost, academic affairs and research. He is now the senior associate vice chancellor for academic affairs and research at a salary of $167,893.
Wyatt and Florine Tousant Milligan, board chairman, did not return messages for comment.
Arkansas, Pages 10 on 06/23/2010