Allowing former UB officials to collect on hefty salaries while in semi-retirement is simply bad business. But by refusing to comment on the practice, President John B. Simpson has further complicated the situation, leaving too much to the media's imagination and giving the appearance of impropriety.
Last week, The Buffalo News reported that former members of the UB community, including a former university president, numerous deans, and a past provost, have all continued collecting salaries in excess of $200,000 from the university. The long-standing practice of offering faculty positions to former administrators is at fault, resulting in several of these officials comprising the group of 29 well-paid ex-officials.
While Simpson isn't to blame for this system, the noteworthy amount of turnover that's occurred during his tenure has inadvertently contributed to the problem by placing more and more high-paid staffers on faculty roles.
What's worse is Simpson's practice of keeping problems in-house, where openness and full disclosure would better serve the problem, and UB's interests. In a misguided attempt at keeping things quiet, Simpson created a different problem. When there is nothing to hide, holding back information gives rise to the appearance there is. Simpson should have learned a lesson from his handling of the AVCOR controversy when he first arrived, and from the soccer hazing scandal in 2004. In both cases, the media scrutiny was mostly due to the secrecy encountered when investigating the events, though both proved to be much ado about nothing.
Simpson is the administrator of a public institution. Running it in secrecy might be in his short-term interest, but certainly not in the long-term.
Photo: Courtesy of Matthew Messina, from the RMBERS' Instagram page
