BANGOR, Maine — The University of Maine System board of trustees will vote Monday on the approval of resigned University of Southern Maine President Selma Botman’s placement in a new job in the chancellor’s office.
System Chancellor James Page announced Botman’s appointment as special assistant to the chancellor on global education, where she will lead efforts to expand the system’s international education programs.
“I am deeply committed to the success of USM, but wish to continue to serve the University of Maine System in a different capacity,” Botman wrote in a late-June letter to Page. “I look forward to continuing to work with the campuses and the Board of Trustees to advance the University of Maine System’s strategic goals in global education.”
Her term as president was scheduled to expire June 30, 2013.
Botman would make $203,000 in her new post, the same amount she made as president of the system’s second-largest university. She also would be permitted to continue to use the title “president.”
Duties outlined in her new agreement include working with campuses to find international student recruitment agents and building relationships with global institutions for faculty exchange programs.
Page recommended Theo Kalikow, who recently retired from the presidency at the University of Maine at Farmington, step into the USM position. Kalikow would earn the same salary as Botman.
Her appointment also is subject to board approval on Monday.
Botman announced her resignation from the presidency two months after a facultywide no-confidence vote was held on the USM campus.
Of the ballots cast over two days in the first week of May, 68 percent voted no confidence in Botman, but because only about 75 percent of the faculty voted, the total fell short of the two-thirds threshold overall.
The Human Resources and Labor Relations Committee will discuss the appointments early in the all-day meeting before the full board votes in the afternoon.
Also at Monday’s meeting, the board will consider changes to the language of the compensation review program which would clarify the chancellor’s authority to require a system-level review of certain raises and appointments to positions, especially at the administrative level.
After a review of the $7 million in salary increases over the past seven years, a representative from the system’s human resources office and the chancellor said at the May board meeting that they largely are satisfied with the system’s compensation program, but that a few alterations might improve oversight.
The trustees also will receive an update on the collective bargaining agreement discussions between the system and the five employee bargaining units whose contracts expired on June 30 or Aug. 31 of 2011.
Any collective bargaining agreement that is reached requires board approval and ratification by the union members before contracts can be executed. Page said that if any tentative agreement is reached before Monday’s board meeting, it will be brought before the trustees for approval.
The trustees also will take a look at The Blue Sky Project, a five-year plan for the system’s flagship university that has been in the works since November 2011. The plan outlines how UMaine should approach its future and lays out a number of goals aiming to strengthen the university and the state as a whole.
More information about the project and its full text are available at umaine.edu/blueskyplan/.
Among the other items on the agenda are:
• The appointment of Richard Cost as president emeritus at the University of Maine at Fort Kent.
• An update on energy use and sustainability within the system.
• An update on the status of capital projects and building upgrades within the system.
• The reinstatement of the Bachelor of Arts in Theater program at UMaine.
• A new mission statement for the University of Maine at Machias.
$203,000???? Holy CRAP! Botman, you need to get out of town.
This is the problem with the University of Maine System: It has a top-heavy administration that is sucking taxpayers and students dry. Is it really necessary for there to be a “special assistant to the chancellor on global education,” with a salary of more than $200,000?
And why should someone who resigned her position still get to keep the title for the position she no longer holds? That’s just silly. When you resign, you take your name plate home; you don’t put it on the desk of your new job.
Left unsaid in this story is whether the position ever existed before now. Come on, reporters and editors. If the position already existed, who occupied it before and what was that person’s salary, and how long was the position vacant?
The PPH reported this story a few days ago. It’s a new position, and the impression I got was that it’s a make-work job created out of whole cloth specifically for Botman.
Since when can the UMS afford a “new” $200,000 position? Must be nice…
I agree with you jakenewcomb44, if she was not doing her job effectively in Southern Maine, why is she qualified to have another job at UofM? I think they should concentrate that money on the little people who keep the UoM running, cleaning, feeding, and keeping up the grounds. The professors , teachers, and higher administration people get the big bucks, and the little guys have not had a decent wage in years. This is a created position which is not necessary!!!!
Bangor Daily reported it as well when the new job was announced. This is a preview of tomorrow’s board of trustees meeting. Should be an interesting one.
This job is just to avoid a long, drawn-out legal hassle.
Cheaper to pay her for a year and then choose to “not extend” her special assignment. The only loser here are the lawyers. Imagine what their fees would have been had UMS tried to fire her.
This is how it works. It’s just the way it is.
You’re probably right. Hell, they’ve already made the agreement; it’s a fait accompli and the trustees’ approval is just a rubber stamp. Still, part of me would like to see the trustees use some back bone and just say no.
Story states it’s “a new job in the chancellor’s office.” maybe not stated as clearly as it could have been. The link in the lead goes to a story from the other day about her resignation and the new position itself
I don’t think that was part of the original version of the story.
If you’re going to hold others to task on details, then you should expect the same. The original article was clear that this is a new position.
It looks like a new position to get her through the end of her contract. They probably have to pay her anyway, so they made up something for her to do. I’d be surprised if the job lasts longer than one year, assuming they ok the deal tomorrow.
She broke her contract by resigning.
I enjoy your comments, but you’re not an attorney.
Maybe she could at least peel some potatos!
Am I missing something here or did she not resign? What is the Chancellor of Global Education’s salary? With so many graduates willing to do internships ….. we could be paying for 4 of them to be special assistants! The Trustee Board needs to seriously look at this new post.
LOL
The Botman appointment is a make-work position that is, alas, all too typical of the UME System when it gets rid of a top administrator. UMaine itself has two “Presidential Profs.,” both of them the two most recent Deans of the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences. They have no academic distinction and, God knows, no administrative distinction in their separate failings as leaders. Before these appointments–which give them the highest faculty salaries in the College–they enjoyed make-work jobs that paid them their full respective salaries as Deans. At least they couldn’t keep their title, not that that mattered. Bear in mind that the contracts for most employees expired on July 1, 2011, that the System has negotiated renewals in continued bad faith, and that other highly paid System execs claim repeatedly that there’s just no money for even small salary increases for the peasants they rule over: not just faculty but classified and professional staff and custodians. But money is always available for this nonsense.
think maybe they should start investigating all higher learning positions and publish the salaries…remember 90% or more of these administrators are of the extreme liberal group
Makes sense, after all, they are public employees.
Agreed! And after that, I want to see all of Romney’s tax returns.
As soon as we see the Obamessiah’s transcripts.
Check here:
~ http://maineopengov.org/
“Special assistant to the chancellor on global education,” and it only pays $203k per year? Oh my goodness how could we ever expect someone who got thrown out of their old job because of a no confidence vote by the faculty to survive on such a paltry sum? Are you (insert expletive) kidding me? These people have totally lost their minds. HELLO this is Maine one of the poorer States in the Nation and we are making jobs for people who couldn’t do their old job and paying them $203 THOUSAND a year? That is over $100 THOUSAND per year more then a full professor makes. This (insert not so nice word for crap) has to stop and it has to stop now. The University System has long been a landing place for the politically connected to collect a big paycheck, but really this is insane. It is time for a complete investigation of the entire University of Maine System. A recent article in the BDN stated that enrollment at all of the State’s Universities is declining. Maybe if we put the money into more professors and less administrators that trend could be reversed.
“Special Assistant to the Traveling Secretary” kinda like George Castanza.
Now THAT is is a great riff
What’s this comment section, another right wing cluster(insert not so nice word)?
Is that an attempt to call me a right winger?
And just why, exactly, do you make this inane comment???????? It would seem to me that the only “cluster —–” involved in this situation has been foisted, yet again, on the taxpayers of this state. At a time when hundreds of Mainers have been downsized/layed off, this move doesn’t pass the smell test, regardless of the wing.
How about the $400,00 Lepage wasted to fight Obomneycare, $300,000 for east-west highway, $41,000/year plus benifits for his daughters givmint job, $ for brother in law givmint job, known republican criminals in givmint, etc,etc. That’s our hard earned tax dollars wasted.
Her salary in 2010 was 173,ooo with a benefit package worth $83000. She’s probably being compensated at an actual cost to us at over $300,000.
This excessive top-loading is why it is less expensive to send a college student to a state university in other states, paying their out of state tuition, than the UMS campuses. This job creating and the way it was presented is abusive of taxpayer funding. I thought that the chancellor system was adopted to eliminate the individual campus presidents to save money? With the use of on-line classes, the promotion of Vocational centers to the college level, and the poor state of our economy, do we need a University campus or annex in just about every town? How many states of Maine’s size and/or population have so many campuses with high priced “presidents”?
The woman has a contract. She gets her 200k regardless of what she does. Put her to work doing something and at least get a little work out of her. What’s to consider? She won’t be there long, just to fulfill the contract is my guess. If she can dig up a few foreign students, that is better than nothing.
Pay her the 200k and send her packing. She’s poison.
She resigned.
This is a test of the integrity of the UMS board of trustees; if they rubber stamp this face-saving, make-work position for a failed administrator their credibility is shot.
I want to know if she is bringing her public relations manager from USM/Gorham to Orono or is the assignment in Portland to make it more convenient to get to the papers with all the non-obvious “accomplishments”.
Which Chancellor hired This Botman?? Was it Page?? Somehow the people, we the taxpayers, need to get back control of the U of M system, this is not a private club, but you can see, they have not fear, just do all this, with the approval of the Human resources, and the Labor relations Committee, I bet there you can finds some dilly’s, LOL. So basically it will cost over $400,000,00 dollars to fund a USM president next year, until they find another dysfunctional flunky to give the job too, wow. Probably during all this, the so-called Human resourses office is probably writing up some poor custodian for missing the cleaning of a couple of toilets, LOL, it is funny, the Great Governor seems to look the other way in this situation, he might lose some votes, it is easier for him to beat on the poor and disabled, wow, Maine the way life should be.
Not Page, Botman started at USM in 2008…Chancellor was Pattenaude at that time.
A bloated disception of nothing, The Chancellor’s Office, a very good cleaning is in order, is there a Maine Congressman or Senator with any guts available out there??
nope.
This is not the “territory” of the Federal lawmakers. This is purely intrastate. Our Gov and legislators need to tackle this problem- and it is a problem.
good idea, time for a confidence vote on Chancellor Page, if he allows this, Hey, Page, take her in the Office, fire her, pay what ya got to, and show us you can lead.
Sorry, but a lawsuit and settlement for breach of contract would be quite a bit pricier than a $200,000 salary.
She resigned so exactly where is the breach of contract?
She resigned. You don’t have to be a lawyer to understand that.
You’re probably right, generic, and she likely resigned on the condition that she get this other job. Without that, she wouldn’t have resigned, and you’d still have her as president of a university where more than half the staff wanted her to go. But the System still has a lot of explaining to do.
She has already resigned. No need to fire her just say buh bye
Re Pres. Botman’s alleged recruitment of foreign students: this was the job of the recently departed Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs, Jim Breece, whose office was supposedly eliminated. He retains his $180,000 base salary while on sabbatical until he “returns to the classroom.” Why couldn’t Botman be assigned to teach some classes? She has a Ph.D. and could surely help doing this rather than staying at her Peaks Island mcmansion–her own home, not her USM home. But the System never forces former administrators to start teaching. They need respite.
Fire all these top heavy make work free rider employees.
Excellent points! Thanks.
To postpond: The System hired Botman to replace Pattenaude when he became Chancellor. Gov. Baldacci was fully informed of the growth of the System payroll and chose to do nothing. He made it clear that his primary concern was UMaine athletics. Too bad that Gov. LePage’s bullying couldn’t be applied in a more positive way to downsizing the System, which has become the largest branch of the System besides Orono and Portland/Gorham despite doing no teaching, research, or service.
Just fire her, like in the real world.
lol. real world. you`re funny
This is the height of ridiculousness, but, hospital administrators, the U of M high muckymucks, and many top level State Employees, seem to be in a club, a you cannot get at me club, there is some slime lying under those rocks, believe this or not, I heard on the street, that some are feeling Lapage and the Lottery commission has rigged the scratch tickets far in the state’s favor, people have bought whole lots and not found a winner, Maine people are surely being hood-winked, robbed of services, while the very top are on the make. I would like to see some people with real ethics, integrity, and as crazy as it may seem, take a paupers oath, and try to clean up these messes, for, MONEY, is what is corrupting these systems, either those with too much, or the fact that the well to do are far too much out of touch with the real Maine people.
Interesting use of run-on sentences.
Here’s a new flash. If you’re buying scratch tickets the expected outcome is that you’re going to lose. Do you think they’re selling those at a loss? Be smart and don’t play that game.
That’s the top few percent of our economy. That is the problem. They have too much power. They have purchased the rights to make the system and they’ve made a system that benefits themselves.
The Blue Sky Project is going to be great for UM. I’ve really liked what President Ferguson has implemented at Maine in the past year.
The “Blue Sky Project” has nothing to do with the University of Maine System; it’s a ridiculous feel-good waste of time and effort concocted by UMaine administrators, faculty members, staffers, and some alumni to state the obvious. Seriously, the report (http://umaine.edu/blueskyplan/files/2012/05/UMaine_Blue_Sky_Plan.pdf) is nothing but hot air and the product of groupthink.
I really don’t care about any other school in the UMS. All I know is that UM will benefit.
Benefit from what? The report is all fluff with nice, pretty pictures, lots of lists, and statements of the obvious. Someone should have said in the first meeting: “Uh, this is silly. Let’s go back to our offices and just do what we’re supposed to be doing instead of wasting our time thinking of what we should already be doing back at our offices.”
At least they’re doing something. Better now than never…
“Board of Trustees to consider….” The BOT doesn’t “consider” anything…they rubber stamp anything that the top administrators want, no questions asked. They “consider” the System Office worth any money the purse holders want to throw at it. They are a board of elites, put in place to protect all the other elites in the System. What the state of Maine needs is a board of trustees who works to protect the taxpayers and students in the University of Maine System.
Selma Botman’s speech at a K of C dinner in her honor:
“Higher education been very good to me.”
If you have to pay her, assign her a janitorial position at the bottom of the ladder.
so with staff it will run around 1/2 millon a year, Tenured I presume. She will be protected by all means
$203,000? That’s not all. Does anyone know that the fringe rate for the University of Maine System is 48.9%! So, not only are Maine taxpayers paying $203,000 for her salary, but another $99,267 for her health and other benefits. The BDN headline should read, “Maine taxpayers cough up $302,267 for a another new position at the UM System Office.” Let’s see….there’s academic dishonesty, academic probation, academic suspension, and now, academic incest.
Also, the Board of Trustees never decides anything. Everything is pro forma. Already decided and discussed and chewed over before any vote occurs. So, it won’t be too much of a surprise on Monday when they vote UNANIMOUSLY to accept the Chancellor’s request for a new position (without a search) in his office in Bangor and new president (without a search) at USM.
I hope the Governor and Legislature are watching these shenanigans! After Pattenaude’s fiasco at USM followed by his less than stellar stint as Chancellor, it is time that the Governor and Legislature ask, finally, “What is the purpose of the University of Maine System Office?”
Does anyone know?
$203,000? That’s not all. Does anyone know that the fringe rate for
the University of Maine System is 48.9%! So, not only are Maine
taxpayers paying $203,000 for her salary, but another $99,267 for her
health and other benefits. The BDN headline should read, “Maine
taxpayers cough up $302,267 for a another new position at the UM System
Office.” Let’s see….there’s academic dishonesty, academic probation,
academic suspension, and now, academic incest.
Also, the Board of Trustees never decides anything. Everything is pro
forma. Already decided and discussed and chewed over before any vote
occurs. So, it won’t be too much of a surprise on Monday when they vote
UNANIMOUSLY to accept the Chancellor’s request for a new position
(without a search) in his office in Bangor and new president (without a
search) at USM.
I hope the Governor and Legislature are watching these shenanigans!
After Pattenaude’s fiasco at USM followed by his less than stellar stint
as Chancellor, it is time that the Governor and Legislature ask,
finally, “What is the purpose of the University of Maine System
Office?”
Does anyone know?
Did they agree to pay her for moving to Bangor, I wonder?