Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Trustees OK pay raises for UA System
President receives increase in salary to $510,000 a year
University of Arkansas System trustees on Wednesday voted to give a 2 percent raise for system president Donald Bobbitt that will increase his salary to $510,000 annually.
The raise takes effect July 1, said UA System spokesman Nate Hinkel. It’s the first salary increase for Bobbitt since 2015, when his pay increased to $500,000 from $427,500.
By comparison, University of Tennessee President Joe DiPietro earns an annual salary of $465,618, according to a March report from the Knoxville News Sentinel. For the University of Missouri System, president Mun Choi, whose hire was announced last year, earns $530,000 in annual salary, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Bobbitt, 60, was hired in 2011 to lead the UA System, which includes six university campuses and seven two-year colleges. His first faculty job was at UA, when he began as an assistant professor of chemistry in 1985. A former dean of UA’s J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences, he was provost at the University of Texas at Arlington at the time of his hire to lead the UA System.
Pay for the UA System president has increased significantly since 2010-11, when former UA System President B. Alan Sugg earned $294,953 in annual salary, according to information provided by the UA System.
The board also approved several salaries for UA personnel, including pay for some coaches and chancellor Joe Steinmetz.
A spokesman for UA, Mark Rushing, said Steinmetz declined an annual pay increase. Steinmetz, the top administrator at the Fayetteville campus, continues to earn a $450,000 annual salary, according to the board resolution approved Wednesday.
Steinmetz also earns deferred compensation that, according to his 2015 offer letter, provides him total annual compensation of $700,000. Steinmetz has been the top campus administrator at UA since Jan. 1, 2016.
Salary increases were also approved by the board for others, including Mark Cochran, the top administrator for the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture, who will earn $268,214, up from $260,402, according to a board document.