Board approves $125,000 pay increase, $250,000 retention bonus
USC’s board of trustees approved a hefty compensation increase for President Harris Pastides Friday.
The board’s executive committee voted to ask the Educational Foundation, which runs the school’s endowment, to give Pastides, USC’s president since 2008, a supplement of $125,000 in annual compensation.
Previously, he received $535,000 in base pay; The State reported that Pastides got an additional $64,000 last year in deferred payment.
In total, pending the foundation’s approval, that would bring Pastides’ total compensation to $724,000, an increase of nearly 21 percent.
The board also asked the foundation to approve a $50,000 per year retention bonus that Pastides would receive in one lump sum if he’s still with the university in five years.
With his deferred payment, Pastides was the fourth-best paid president in the Southeastern Conference in 2011, according to data compiled by the Chronicle of Higher Education.
With this pay increase, he’d be No. 3, behind Nicholas Zeppos of Vanderbilt University and Lee Todd, Jr. of the University of Kentucky, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education’s database.
This year, USC’s faculty received an across-the-board pay raise of 3 percent.
During Pastides’ presidency, the university has seen record-setting research funding, rising enrollment that he promised to cap, a pair of baseball national championships and a school-best 11-win football season.