Where We Stand:

College leader’s deal is a bad idea.

Eager to carve space out of the next state budget for tax cuts and other pet priorities, leaders in the Florida Legislature have been eyeing the state system of 28 public colleges. The Senate’s version of the budget would cut $55 million in remedial education funding and suspend $30 million in performance funding for colleges. The House’s budget would force colleges to raid $63 million from their reserves and also eliminate nearly $10 million in state funding for staff in their foundations.

College leaders, not surprisingly, are not happy. We share their dismay. Florida’s colleges are a vital part of the state’s economy and quality of life. They’re a bargain, to boot.

But it was against this backdrop of budget pressure from the state Capitol that the board of trustees at Seminole State College recently approved a lucrative contract extension for Ann McGee, its president since 1996. Given the scrutiny legislators have been applying to colleges, it was a tone-deaf move on the trustees’ part, even for a president with the tenure and undeniable accomplishments of McGee.

“The most generous we have seen”

McGee’s new contract maintained her $303,916 salary for the next three years and made her eligible for an additional $15,000 in performance bonuses. But it also created a “presidential emeritus” position for her in the following two years, which will allow her to take a one-year sabbatical while still drawing her presidential salary.

Then, with the approval of her successor as president, she can remain at the college the following year to fund raise and work with retired employees, with a salary guaranteed to be no lower than the $98,615 maximum for a full-time faculty member with a doctorate.

McGee’s new contract also provides her with up to 90 days of paid time off a year — three months’ worth — which includes up to 36 bonus vacation days based on her job evaluation. She will be entitled to be paid for all of her unused time off within 45 days of her retirement.

And despite McGee’s contention that her contract is not “out of the ordinary,” a public policy professor who has studied university presidents’ contracts told the Sentinel’s Gabrielle Russon that McGee’s deal on paid leave was “among the most generous we have seen if not the most generous we have seen.”

Valencia College President Sandy Shugart has a higher salary of $328,048 than McGee, but his institution has more than twice as many students. While he received a $190,000 retention bonus in 2015, he has routinely turned down annual performance bonuses. Under his leadership, Valencia was named the nation’s best community college in 2011 by the Aspen Institute. Shugart, Valencia’s president since 2000, is eligible for 26 fewer leave days than McGee.

When former Lake Sumter College President Charles Mojock retired in 2015 after 13 years on the job overseeing an institution that had grown to about 6,000 students, he was making $226,515. He received $242,566 in deferred compensation from the college provided under his contract in lieu of leave time. He then became eligible for a standard pension under the Florida Retirement System, according to a college spokesman.

Tallahassee is paying attention

As they put together their budget, leaders in the Florida House have been aggressive in highlighting state spending that they consider excessive. Speaker Richard Corcoran filed suit to release to the public Visit Florida’s $1 million promotional contract with the rapper Pitbull, then vowed to abolish the agency. The House budget ended up giving a reprieve to Visit Florida, but called for cutting its budget by $50 million.

If Seminole State trustees don’t think Tallahassee is paying attention, they’re kidding themselves. Last month, for example, a House budget panel gave University of Central Florida Foundation CEO Michael Morsberger the third degree over his organization’s $600,000 in travel spending, even though it came from private money. The House budget now calls for eliminating $53 million in state funding for staff at university foundations.

The budget hawks are circling Florida’s state colleges. Seminole’s trustees have made it harder to keep them at bay.