UMinn again defends level of administrative costs

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - The University of Minnesota is once again defending itself against the idea that it’s overloaded with administrative costs, to the potential expense of faculty and students.

A left-leaning think tank called the Institute for Policy Studies released a report Sunday labeling the university one of the five “worst overall offenders” of administrative excess, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported (https://strib.mn/1jYPSCQ ).

The report accused the school of spending too much on executives and administrative staff, and cautioned that students would pay the price in the form of heavy debt. The authors noted that from 2010 to 2012, the number of the University of Minnesota’s non-academic administrators tripled to 2,384.

University President Eric Kaler called the report “dead wrong” and accused the institute of using “incorrect data to reach erroneous results.”

The report’s authors said they analyzed public data to determine which public universities spent the most on executive salaries and administrative staff. The University of Minnesota ranked third worst, better than Ohio State University and Penn State and behind the University of Michigan and the University of Washington.

Chuck Tombarge, a spokesman for the University of Minnesota, said the report “comes across as very political,” and that the statistics were either misrepresented or “in some cases are outright wrong.”

In 2012, The Wall Street Journal reported that the school had the largest share of administrative employees among the nation’s 72 top public research universities. The newspaper also said the school’s administrative ranks had grown 37 percent since 2001.

The university disputed the findings, saying they were based on information the school reported incorrectly to the federal database upon which the newspaper’s research was based.

Since then, the school commissioned a number of studies that concluded it didn’t have an excessive number of administrators.

Tombarge said Kaler makes $610,000 per year and that the president has refused to accept annual raises, asking instead that the money be used for scholarships.

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Information from: Star Tribune, https://www.startribune.com