Where the Money Goes

In case you haven’t heard, UBC’s salary data has been released for the fiscal year ending March 2009 (available here, Excel sheet including 2008 data, compiled by UBC Insiders, available here). In accordance with the Financial Information Act of BC, this document includes a breakdown of all persons earning over $75,000 and lists both remuneration and expenses. Upon analysis of this and the 2008 data, some interesting observations can be made.

Note: When examining this data, it is important to remember that remuneration is not purely paid salary but also includes benefits and other forms of compensation.

One datum which immediately jumped out, upon scanning through all 3,261 names, was that former UBC President, Martha Piper received a whopping $359,127 in 07-08 and another $96,526 in 08-09. As her term as UBC’s President ended in June 2006, it is astounding to see such large amounts of compensation still being paid.

It may also be interesting to note that UBC’s net salary increase was 8.19% from 07-08 to 08-09.

More detailed analysis of raises and other salary data after the jump.

Raises

Probably the most interesting set of data we can examine is to look at the raises some of UBC’s more well known figures or departments received.

Knowing that UBC lost a significant amount of money on it’s investments last year, you might expect that the head staff at UBC IMANT (Investment Management Trust) Inc. would receive little to no increase in salary. It is therefore surprising to see that Philip Falls (President and CEO of UBC IMANT Inc) and Roger Polishak (Director, Manager Relations and Investment Operations) both received significant increases in remuneration.

It is also interesting to see how many other employees of UBC Finance received increased pay. A particularly interesting raise to look at is that of Terry Sumner, former VP Finance & Administration who retired in May 2008 only halfway through his term. Despite leaving only one month into the 08-09 fiscal year, Sumner received a whopping $422,800.00 in remuneration; a 46.57% increase over his 07-08 pay of $288,460.00. As UBC had at this point suffered losses to its investment portfolio, and had begun to encounter budgetary issues, it is alarming to see raises of this size being bestowed upon those responsible for managing finances.

UBC Properties Trust Employees also fared on average quite well in the 2009 remuneration boost, with 10 employees receiving significant raises. Considering PT has a monopoly on all capital projects at UBC, it is rather alarming to see such high raises; especially considering the current ‘times of economic uncertainty’ and the difficulties many important projects are encountering in terms of finding appropriate funding. It also doesn’t help that UBC PT doesn’t have the best track record in recent years.

As this article would be incomplete without examining the top UBC brass, a table is provided below with the salary data for all VPs (and AVP HR). Some interesting observations:

1. While other media outlets may fixate on the high remuneration value for President Toope, it is interesting to note that his total compensation has reduced by over 1.5% since last year.
2. It is interesting to note that Barbara Miles and Stephen Toope each claimed just in excess of $100,000 in expenses last year, though they were slightly overshadowed by Gavin Stuart, Dean of Medicine, coming in at $109,403 in expenses.
3. It is comforting to note that most of UBC’s high-level administrators received relatively small raises (neglecting Owen and Farrar for reasons described below), with the exception of Lisa Castle, who received a 26% increase.

1. Hired late in 2008, remuneration must be under $75,000 and not reported.
2. Hired August 15, 2007, thus 2008 salary amount is incomplete and ‘raise’ is not accurate.
3. Hired January 2009, thus 2009 salary amount is incomplete.
4. Hired September 1, 2007, thus 2008 salary amount is incomplete and ‘raise’ is not accurate.