UB's national search for a new president last year -- which ended with the selection of John B. Simpson -- cost almost $220,000, according to search committee records released from the president's office this summer.
The cost of the search was slightly higher than that of other universities that recently conducted presidential searches, but is still in the ballpark of what a school like UB would spend, according to Robert Wagner, senior counselor to the president.
Seventy-three percent of the cost -- nearly $161,000 -- went towards the private search firm EMN/Witt/Kieffer, while the other $60,000 was spent on travel, food, advertising, phone services, hotel rooms and other reimbursable costs.
According to a February article in the Daily Iowan, the University of Iowa's recent five-month search cost $177,204. Ohio University's presidential search cost $195,000, according to Jack Jeffrey, OU media specialist. And the University of Florida's eight-month search cost about $150,000, according to Manny Fernandez, chairman for the UF presidential search committee.
"I think a search for a president is no different from a contractual point of view than when you search for a CEO of a company," Fernandez said.
Fernandez said he was thrilled with the low, fixed fee his school was able to negotiate with its search firm.
During Florida's search, the university looked at 11 serious candidates, Fernandez said. UB similarly looked at 12 serious candidates that visited UB more than once, according to Wagner.
"We thought when we were all finished that we had a successful search and we were in the ballpark of what a university like ours would spend on a presidential search, and we did it in a reasonable timeframe," said Wagner, who served as the staff liaison to the search committee.
According to Wagner, under the contract with EMN/Witt/Kieffer, the firm's fee was a combination of salary percentage and extra costs like travel. In that regard, UB's contract with its firm was similar to that at Ohio University, which paid about one-third of its new president's negotiated salary to AT Kearney of Alexandria, Va.
"This is a common type of arrangement and a common fee for this type of search," OU media specialist Jeffrey said.
According to Wagner, the firm worked closely with the search committee, attending every meeting and working as an intermediary between candidates and the committee. The firm also met with faculty, staff and student groups to develop a "sophisticated job description" for candidates, drew up the advertisements, contacted candidates and advised the committee.
Wagner said he did not have a fixed cost in mind when entering the search because of factors like how long it would last, how many candidates the committee would consider and where the candidates were from. He acknowledged that UB's costs seemed slightly higher, but said, "Everybody counts numbers differently."
The entire cost of the search was paid for by the UB Foundation, a private organization that invests non-governmental money into the university.
"UB Foundation and its many affiliates administer private support for the University at Buffalo," said Edward Schneider, executive director of the UB Foundation. "Private support is money from other sources than the government."
In the past, the UB Foundation has put money towards the building of Baird Point and the on-campus apartment complexes. Wagner said a percentage of the UB Foundation's funds were reallocated to the presidential search to make certain processes easier for everyone involved.
"We just decided if we used the foundation we could do reimbursements to candidates far more efficiently than through the state," he said.
