Madison Shumway
Life Editor
From associate professors to transcript evaluators to administrative assistants to vice presidents, ISU employs 1,802 public personnel.
Transparent Idaho, an accountability effort maintained by Idaho’s state controller, documents each employee’s salary and position. It also releases a list of the state’s 482 highest-paid employees, who all make more money per year than outgoing governor Butch Otter.
Of the 482 highest-earning public employees, 80 work at ISU. These employees, who comprise 4 percent of ISU’s workforce, net a combined $12.7 million each year.
With an annual salary of $370,000, ISU’s top dog, President Kevin Satterlee, is Idaho’s fifth highest-paid state employee. He ranks slightly below University of Idaho president Charles Staben and Boise State University president Martin Schimpf, who take in a respective 15 grand and 21 grand more than Satterlee per year.
All are surpassed by Boise’s head men’s basketball coach Leon Rice and head football coach Bryan Harsin. Harsin, who rakes in nearly $1.5 million each year, is Idaho’s highest-paid public employee.
The next 79 highest earners at ISU belong mostly in the upper echelons of the university—vice presidents, provosts, deans, directors and department chairs—but several clinical faculty members and assistant professors make the cut.
ISU lists 45 percent of its highest-paid personnel in its organizational chart of administration. The 36 employees make a combined $6.2 million a year.
ISU’s highest administration earners are Executive Vice President and Provost Laura Woodworth-Ney, Kasiska Division of Health Sciences Vice President Rex Force, Vice President of Research and Graduate School Dean Cornelius Van der Schyf, College of Science & Engineering Dean Scott Snyder and Vice President for University Advancement Kent Tingey. The five make an average of $225,700 per year.
Vice presidents, including Rex Force (Division of Health Sciences), Lyn Redington (Student Affairs), Kent Tingey (University Advancement) and Cornelius Van der Schyf (Research), make an average $157,601 salary. Their associate vice presidents earn an average $147,454 per year.
The deans who rank among ISU’s top 4 percent of earners are Kathy Hildebrand (College of Education), Thomas Ottaway (College of Business), Scott Rasmussen (College of Technology), Scott Snyder (College of Science & Engineering) and Kandi Turley-Ames (College of Arts & Letters). The five deans make an average $174,945 salary.
Other high-ranking and high-earning ISU administration officials include General Counsel & Chief Compliance Officer Joanne Hirase-Stacey, Interim Athletic Director and Associate Vice President for Development Pauline Thiros, Chief Financial Officer Brian Hickenlooper, Vice Provost for Academic Affairs & Institutional Effectiveness Selena Grace, Chief Information Officer Randy Gaines and Human Resources Director Brian Sagendorf.
The remaining 55 percent of highest-earning employees consist mostly of department chairs, clinical faculty and tenured non-clinical faculty, with a smattering of research associates, engineers and assistant professors.
With the exception of Interim Athletic Director Pauline Thiros and former Athletic Director Jeff Tingey, who remains on the university’s payroll, head football coach Rob Phenicie is ISU’s highest-earning public athletics employee. At $165,006 a year, he places 25th among top-earning ISU personnel.
ISU’s highest-paid department chairs include Donna Lybecker (Political Science), Catherine Oliphant (Pharmacy Practice and Administrative Sciences), Kevin Parker (Informatics and Computer Science), Neil Tocher (Management and Marketing), and Marvin Schulte (Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences), who earn an average $143,713 each year.
Clinical faculty, who serve largely in the College of Pharmacy and in the university’s Family Medicine Residency program, make an average of $169,226.
ISU’s highest-earning non-clinical faculty, the majority of whom have reached tenure, hail from nuclear engineering, pharmacy and business backgrounds. They earn an average of $143,310 per year.
The Bengal will analyze all faculty salaries in a future edition.
