USC President Harris Pastides received a $100,000 raise Friday after the Board of Trustees voted to approve it. The new salary package, which was approved unanimously by the Board, also includes retention bonuses that will begin in 2018.
The money will come specifically from the privately funded USC Foundation and not the state of South Carolina. The Foundation pays Pastides a supplemental compensation in addition to his state-paid salary.
His supplemental pay will now reach $603,800 a year along with $312,530 from the state — a total of over $916,000. The supplemental pay will rise again to $703,800 in July 2018, and Pastides will receive a $300,000 retention bonus that same month. He will get bonuses of $350,000 every year he stays at Carolina from July 2019 forward. A $250,000 bonus for July 2017 was previously approved.
Pastides now ranks fifth in the SEC for university president compensation and would rank sixth nationally among four-year public college presidents based on 2014-15 data from the Chronicle of Higher Education.
The board noted that Pastides serves as both president of the Columbia campus and other USC campuses throughout the state. They say this saves the university system money in the long run because they don't have to pay for a system chancellor.
Pastides is in his ninth year as president of the university, and he previously served as dean of the Arnold School of Public Health.