UF President Bernie Machen's salary may be lowered if the U.S. Treasury Department extends its new guidelines to university presidents. On Feb. 4, the department tried to cap top executives' salaries at some companies to $500,000 in order to ameliorate the nation's financial crisis, according to a Chronicle of Higher Education article released last week.
Although the new regulations are directed at corporations receiving federal bailout funding, some believe they may eventually affect universities, according to the article.
This might put university presidents' salaries at risk. Machen's 2008 salary of $731,811 made him Florida's highest-paid public university president.
However, UF spokesman Steve Orlando said the possibility was only based on speculation, adding that Machen has a base salary of $220,000. The rest comes from bonuses and private funds from UF's Athletic Association and Shands at UF.
He said if UF were to be compared to a corporation, then Machen would be in charge of 24,000 employees and about a $4-billion budget. This does not including the 51,000 or so students who attend UF, Orlando said.
He added that UF produces $7 billion for the state economy through sports and research.
