Tag search result

Marvin Schiller, Mary Easley's lawyer, said today that Easley won't resign from her post at N.C. State University.

At a press conference this morning, Schiller, a Raleigh attorney, said she received the job "on her merits" and read letters of performance for Easley.

Easley smiled at Schiller's side while he read letters, but did not speak.

"You are a great ambassador for N.C. State in so many ways," Schiller read from one letter written by Larry Nielson, former N.C. State provost, who resigned over Easley's hiring.

"Mary Easley plans to continue to make outstanding contributions to North Carolina State University and North Carolina," he said.

Mary Easley has been urged to resign by Erskine Bowles, president of the UNC system, N.C. State Chancellor James Oblinger and Hannah Gage, chairwoman of the UNC Board of Governors. They all said she should leave for the good of the university.

Erskine Bowles wants McQueen Campbell to resign.

The president of the University of North Carolina system asked the chairman of the N.C. State University board to resign immediately after learning that Campbell played a role in hiring former First Lady Mary Easley.

Bowles told the N&O that Campbell phoned him earlier this week and "went through a whole mea culpa," then recounted telling Chancellor James Oblinger that Easley was looking to change jobs before N.C. State hired her in 2005.

"He said, 'I did tell Jim Oblinger in passing that Mary Easley was going to change jobs and he may not even remember that.'" Bowles said. "And I said, 'What?' That was about the end of the conversation. I was surprised."

Campbell was prominently featured in a two-part series last weekend in the N&O for flying the governor in his planes for free and bragging of his influence in getting state contracts. (N&O) 

If Mary Easley's $170,000 salary is approved this week, she will make more than all but 94 of 3,455 N.C. State faculty and administrators.

An executive in residence who runs a lecture series, the state's first lady received an 88 percent pay increase earlier this year along with new duties. The changes drew criticism at N.C. State and other state universities.

Pay raises that large are supposed to be reviewed by the UNC system's Board of Governors, but N.C. State did not present it initially.

Many of those with higher salaries include Chancellor James Oblinger, who earns $390,835, and Provost Larry Nielsen, who earned $290,000. Others were current and former football coaches.

Just 23 employees who made more than $170,000 were faculty members without administrative duties.

If approved, Easley's pay would put her in the top three percent. (N&O)

The 15.7 percent raises last month for UNC-Chapel Hill Chancellor James Moeser and N.C. State University Chancellor James Oblinger were approved by the UNC Board of Governors two and a half weeks before Moeser announced his intentions to step down from the position. That was no accident, UNC President Erskine Bowles said Friday, Jane Stancill reports.

The $53,035 raises were given, in part, to raise the UNC-CH chancellor's salary to a more competitive level as the search begins for Moeser's replacement. "The other part was they deserve it," Bowles said. "If you look at where the median and where the 80th percentile is for people who run institutions like N.C. State and Chapel Hill, they're signficantly higher." The salaries were raised to $390,835.

A similar rationale was given by Bowles for UNC Health Care System CEO Dr. William Roper's salary bump, which was reported as a 7.2 percent increase to $690,000. That wasn't just an increase over his base salary, but was calculated based on his total compensation the previous year (the base salary plus a $110,000 bonus he received in 2006-07). Roper had also received a mid-year salary adjustment in February — a raise of $44,502 — "to partially offset the loss of future performance-based bonuses," said UNC spokeswoman Joni Worthington.

So while the UNC Health Care's board eliminated bonuses for its executives earlier this year, Roper still ended up with a higher paycheck. Roper's bonus had been sharply criticized by people who complained about the health care system's aggressive collection practices toward patients.