Summer Recap | Executive pay rises as expected

The recently released executive compensation figures for the 2008 fiscal year - which began on July 1, 2007 and ended on June 30, 2008 - were as expected, with no University officials receiving surprising increases in compensation.

Following her 41-percent pay raise in the 2007 fiscal year, Penn President Amy Gutmann received an 11-percent pay increase for fiscal year 2008 after compensation decisions were completed in June 2007.

Of Gutmann's total compensation of $1,279,819, she earned $825,000 in base salary, a 10-percent increase from FY 2007.

Gutmann also took in $400,103 in benefits, including a $239,750 performance-based incentive payment that will be given to her when she retires.

University spokeswoman Lori Doyle confirmed that Gutmann and the officers of the University will receive no base-pay increases for the 2010 fiscal year, as promised in a University-wide e-mail Gutmann sent last December concerning the financial state of the University.

The University Board of Trustees is currently discussing salaries for FY 2010.

Gutmann's pay increase is higher than the national average. According to CJ Bolster, vice president at the Hay Group, the consulting firm that Penn uses to assist with decisions regarding executive compensation, the average compensation increase among university presidents in fiscal year 2008 was about 7 percent.

Gutmann's compensation, which has increased by nearly 60 percent since she first became Penn's president in 2004, is about 30-percent greater than the salary earned by her predecessor, Judith Rodin, during her 10th and final year as president, when she received $986,915.

Gutmann had the second-highest salary in FY 2008 of the Ivy League schools for which numbers were available - Columbia University President Lee Bollinger had the highest at $1,380,035.

Richard Levin, Yale's president, earned the next highest amount after Gutmann, taking in $1,200,583. His total compensation increased by 23 percent from the 2007 fiscal year. (Princeton University did not provide its tax returns.)

Gutmann's salary is set by the compensation committee of the University Board of Trustees.

Prior to each academic and fiscal year, Gutmann and the Trustees agree on a set of objectives covering both academic and financial factors for the coming year.

At the end of the academic year, her performance is reviewed relative to accomplishing those objectives. That performance is factored into decisions regarding her compensation and incentive payments for that year.

Chairman of the Board of Trustees and compensation committee member James Riepe said Gutmann's pay increase, which was set in June 2007, was a result of not only performance in the 2006-2007 academic year but also her contribution to Penn over her entire time as the University's president.

Despite Gutmann's seven-figure salary, she was not Penn's highest-paid employee during the 2008 fiscal year. Both Arthur Rubenstein, dean of the School of Medicine and executive vice president of the University Health System, and Ralph Muller, CEO of the Health System, had total compensation packages exceeding $2 million.

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.