NINETY DAYS ON JOB NETS EXEC $235,000 IN SEVERANCE
Concordia University gave a $235,000 severance payout to an executive hired last year to help deal with budget cuts. Sonia Trudel had been on the job for 90 days when she left the university.
Trudel, a chartered professional accountant, joined Concordia on Aug. 17, first as a special adviser to the university’s president, and then, as of Sept. 21, as chief financial officer.
When it hired Trudel, Concordia said it was “impressed by her experience, which includes working for public institutions that have faced funding cuts similar to those we are dealing with.”
On Nov. 16, Concordia announced Trudel had “stepped down by mutual agreement.”
Now, Concordia has confirmed it gave Trudel $235,000 in severance pay, the equivalent of one-year’s salary.
Concordia spokesperson Chris Mota could not say why Trudel left. “We honoured the terms of her contract — that’s all I can say,” Mota said.
“That’s too much money for someone who stayed for just three months,” said engineering professor Ted Stathopoulos, president of the Concordia University Faculty Association. “I’m surprised.”
Cinema professor Dave Douglas, president of Concordia’s Part-Time Faculty Association, said Trudel’s quick exit was “quite scandalous.”
Questions must be asked about “the process for hiring this person,” Douglas said. “It seems there was a fundamental problem that somehow was not addressed in the hiring that quickly made the position untenable. I certainly wouldn’t want to repeat that process.”
Trudel’s severance was “i ndecent” and “defies understanding,” Quebec solidaire MNA Amir Khadir said. He said a “private-sector culture” in universities and other public institutions is costing taxpayers dearly.
Khadir said Quebec should impose a moratorium on severance packages at publicly funded institutions, followed by a review of severance rules and criteria.
Concordia severance payouts have made headlines before.
In December 2010, Judith Woodsworth left midway through her contract as the university’s president. She was given a $703,000 severance package. Woodsworth was later re-hired by Concordia as a professor of French translation.
In 2007, Woodsworth’s predecessor, Claude Lajeunesse quit about two years into his term with $1 million in severance.