The University of Connecticut Board of Trustees' decision Wednesday to study the soaring salaries of UConn administrators came none too soon, said state Rep. Zeke Zalaski, D-Southington, co-chairman of legislature's Labor and Public Employees Committee.
Zalaski cited a March 13 Government Watch column in the Courant that reported that UConn's two top police officials - Chief Robert Hudd and Major Ronald Blicher - were paid $246,961 and $193,616 last year, much higher than the salaries of many of their counterparts in big-city police departments and at other universities. The column also said that Hudd and Blicher each got at least a $28,000 pay raise from 2009 to 2010.
"It's about time," Zalaski said of the UConn Board of Trustees' action. The trustees decided to form a study committee on administrators' pay after their chairman, Lawrence McHugh, said the UConn president's office had approved hefty pay raises for administrators while keeping the trustees "in the dark."
Zalaski added: "While many state employees have agreed to pay freezes and furlough days, these individuals reportedly got $28,000 pay raises last year. Nothing personal against them, but those raises make no sense while elected officials are battling a huge state budget deficit."