SaveCatholic.com published the taxable income of CUA’s executive leadership in 2009 and 2016, and drew attention to the fact that their pay went up 86% over that period. The table is published below.
What we would like to point out are the bonuses paid. President Garvey received a bonus of $115,000; Robert Specter received $51,116; Frank Persico received $43,000.
According to the explanation on the IRS filing, “these bonus payments were based on satisfaction of performance targets.”
It would be interesting to know what “performance targets” the President and Vice President for finance are hitting. The University is significantly underperforming its competitors and faculty are being fired. What possible targets did the President hit?
The Board of Trustees approves the President’s bonus, and the President approves those for his Vice Presidents.
Shall we ask the President and the Board to disclose the formulas they use to calculate incentive pay? Where do these formulas come from? What kind of performance are they meant to incentivize? From all we can gather, the formulas would seem to rely on some kind of inverse ratio.
Whatever their formula, perhaps the Trustees should consider a different way to structure incentive pay. Perhaps they could find performance targets that reward executives for strengthening rather than weakening the University.
Breakdown of Executive Compensation, showing bonuses and nontaxable benefits
Comparison of taxable income of executive leadership from 2009 to 2016