HONOLULU — The University of Hawaii Board of Regents is expected to vote next week on a proposal to pay outgoing president M.R.C. Greenwood nearly $300,000 a year when she returns to the university as a medical school professor. HONOLULU
HONOLULU — The University of Hawaii Board of Regents is expected to vote next week on a proposal to pay outgoing president M.R.C. Greenwood nearly $300,000 a year when she returns to the university as a medical school professor.
Hawaii News Now reported the agenda for next Thursday’s regents meeting calls for the board to approve Greenwood’s leave without pay and her appointment to tenured faculty at the John A. Burns School of Medicine at a rate of $24,470 a month.
That comes out to $293,640 a year.
As president, Greenwood earned about $475,000 and was paid a $5,000-a-month housing allowance.
She said in May she would retire to deal with health problems and spend more time with her family.
Her contract says she would be granted a tenured faculty position in her field. Greenwood is an expert in diabetes and obesity.
Most Hawaii medical faculty are medical doctors whose median pay is $129,367.
The highest paid medical school professor takes home $344,880, according to salary research by the University of Hawaii Professional Assembly, the faculty union.
Greenwood was heavily criticized during her last year in office by lawmakers upset with how she responded to news that the athletic department had botched an attempt to hire Stevie Wonder to perform at a fundraiser concert.
The department was scammed out of a $200,000 deposit by someone falsely claiming to represent the singer.
Greenwood removed Jim Donovan as athletic director after the fiasco.
But the university then gave Donovan a new three-year contract worth about $600,000 for a different position when he threatened to sue if he wasn’t reinstated.
A business consultant told the Board of Regents audit committee on Thursday that it should be become more proactive and better trained to avoid similar blunders in the future.
Hawaii News Now reported that Larry Rodriguez told the committee the regents need better initial training and annual updates about how to be good, involved regents.
The university has signed a $224,000 contract with consulting firm KMH to help a task group study ways to improve UH financial and management oversight and avoid being scammed.
