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Presidential pay, expenses leave unanswered questions
Published 10/1/2009 in Webster University’s The Journal
By Amir Kurtovic
Richard Meyers, the former president of Webster University, didn’t leave empty handed after unexpectedly resigning in February 2008. Along with one year’s pay of almost $700,000, he is also receiving more than $700,000 in deferred compensation, according to the latest 990 tax document.
Meyers was the highest paid university executive in the St. Louis area. His salary for 2008 was $696,713, a large increase from his 2007 salary of $572,875. In comparison, the provost of St. Louis University had a salary of $246,000 in 2008 and the chancellor of Washington University made $539,250 in the same year.
The Journal was unable to reach the Board of Trustees for a comment about Meyers’ compensation before going to print.
“When one compares other places, his salary was outrageous,” said Donna Campbell, professor in the department of multidisciplinary studies and onetime member of the salary and fringe benefits committee. “It is unfortunate that the Board of Trustees approved such a large increase.”
The compensation and bonus payments are a reflection of what is going on in the corporate world, according Kelly-Kate Pease, a professor in the history, politics, and international relations department.
“There is a disconnect between how much a president is paid and what a regular employee is paid at Webster,” Pease said.
Along with Meyers’ salary and deferred compensation, there are still unanswered questions about his expenses. According to a Journal review of the last nine years of tax documents, Meyers claimed more expenses than most St. Louis-area university leaders combined.
The Board of Trustees Audit Committee and an independent accounting firm, BKD LLP, audited Meyers’ expense claims in 2005. Both found he had claimed some personal expenses as business expenses during 2004 and 2005, according to WU’s 990 tax filing for 2005.
WU officials and the chair of the audit committee, Michael DeHaven, would not disclose how much money was declared personal expenses by the independent audit or whether it has been repaid. In an April interview with The Journal, DeHaven said anything that had to do with expenses and compensation was a “personnel-related matter” and could not be discussed.
Between the fiscal years of 2000 and 2008, Meyers claimed a total of $675,611 in expenses, according to WU’s tax documents. That is an average of more than $75,000 per year. At least a small portion of these expenses, however, were personal expenses that Meyers should not have claimed, according to an audit report listed in WU’s 2005 990 filing.
Meyers, contacted in April 2009 when The Journal began working on this story, would not comment on the money in question, saying it is a matter for the Board of Trustees.
An audit committee consisting of Board of Trustees members was formed Sept. 21, 2004. Part of the committee’s responsibility would be to look into the expense reports filed by Meyers, according to WU’s tax documents. Reviewing the president’s expenses had been a duty of the board of trustees chair prior to the creation of the audit committee.
Issues with expenses are not unique to WU, according to Paul Fain, a reporter for the Chronicle of Higher Education.
“We’ve seen big cases of presidents getting in trouble with expenses, and it was usually because only one board member was in charge of reviewing compensation and expenses,” Fain said.
DeHaven said the committee formed as a response to a growing trend in higher education of university administrators tightening fiscal control. He rejected the notion that the committee was created in response to any kind of misuse of WU money in the form of expenses.
“The principle role (of the audit committee) is to make sure that the university has good compliance policies,” said DeHaven, who was named the chair of the audit committee due to his experience working with BJC HealthCare, a non-profit organization, and his background as a lawyer.
According to a statement included in WU’s 2005 tax filing, the issue of the former president’s expenses was raised in the first audit committee meeting in September 2004. The report in WU’s 2005 tax filing states that after the committee’s charter was reviewed and approved, DeHaven agreed to review the president’s expense reports.
“It’s not strange that a board would want to look into the expenses,” Fain said. “Boards and presidents at good schools want to make sure that every dollar is accounted for.”
The first action of the Audit Committee was to review all of Meyers’ expenses for the 2004 fiscal year. This review determined that some expenses appeared to be personal. The committee then expanded the scope of its investigation to include expenses claimed in the 2005 fiscal year as well.
In October 2005, WU’s Audit Committee authorized an independent tax review of the expenses in question. The accounting firm that conducted the review, BKD, had been used by WU in the past for yearly audits and financial advice, DeHaven said.
After this review, the Board of Trustees required Meyers to repay, with interest, all of the expenses determined to have been personal. As of April 14, 2006, Meyers had still not repaid any of the money, according to a report included in WU’s 2005 990 tax filing.
It is unknown if the money has been repaid because Meyers, DeHaven and Chancellor Neil George would not comment.
