Barrows Gets More Taxpayer Cash
This is the kind of stuff that makes my head explode.
The University of Wisconsin System has agreed to pay $135,000 and withdraw a critical letter to settle a long-running dispute with a former top administrator.
In return, Paul Barrows, who was a vice-chancellor at UW-Madison, will drop all pending claims against the university.
[...]
Chancellor John Wiley removed Barrows in November 2004 from his job as vice chancellor of student affairs and let him take a seven-month leave, collecting his $191,000 annual salary while looking for another job.
That action came after Wiley learned of a consensual relationship between Barrows and a female graduate student.
Later, however, allegations arose that Barrows had harassed two women on campus. He was moved to a $150,000-a-year consultant’s job, then demoted within a few days to a campus job paying about $73,000 a year.
Investigations led the Board of Regents to tighten rules on sick leave and policies on back-up jobs, a once-common benefit providing lesser jobs for administrators who resigned or were fired.
In April 2006, the case landed in front of an academic staff appeals committee, which held its two-day hearing in public at Barrows’ request. It concluded unanimously that the university failed to prove Barrows harassed women.
That committee also recommended that a reprimand letter be expunged from Barrows’ file. In response, Provost Patrick Farrell substituted a non-disciplinary “letter of counsel’’ warning Barrows to be aware of how his behavior affects others.
That letter will be removed from his file as part of the settlement announced Friday.
He had a backup job provided by the taxpayers, received tens of thousands of dollars while he looked for another job, and now the taxpayers have to pay him another $135k. The bureaucratic rules that make this crap possible are one of the reasons that our government costs too dang much.
Ok, how are top paid administrators not “at will” employees?
They should not be given any protection, let alone back up jobs etc.
These are professionals who should be treated as such.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on June 16, 2007 at 0954 hrs
Hmmmm, so . . . if Huebsch holds the line on no new taxes and the result is a budget impasse, that means no increase for the UW, right? Despite the alarmism in today’s JSOnline, that doesn’t sound like such a bad deal to me. Pass a very limited budget to (1) put in place a real cap on property tax increases and (2) provide local aids, and let’s call it a day. Cost-to-continue MA, too, I suppose.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on June 16, 2007 at 1007 hrs
Sounds like someone got a “golden parachute”, and the rest of us get the “golden shower”.
As an aside, we hear that UW must pay more money to get “top” people. $191,000 a year? If this is what we are getting for $191,000, I say forgo the high paid help. The collateral damage costs too much.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on June 16, 2007 at 1249 hrs
What you’re not getting here is that the guy was found not guilty. Where is the “down with the PC cop” cry? If you are unjustly accused, and essentially convicted by being pulled from your job, don’t you deserve compensation when it turns out you didn’t do what they said you did?
On the other hand, if a guy had been harassing students, do you want him to keep doing so for seven months—maybe to your daughter? And maybe multiplying the complaints and damages? (Just the legal ones; your daughter could end up dropping out of school or at least seeing her grades drop.)
Btw, I think UW administrators are contractual employees, annually. Contracts are moot, of course, if they misbehave. But if found not guilty, contractual law says to pay up.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on June 16, 2007 at 1319 hrs
He was found not guilty by a academic court- not a legal court. The court has different standards than the legal system. In fact, unless it is the most heinious allegations, they’ll let the person walk, more times than not. Especially with a miniority staff member. Finacially, it may have been the best, however, he is still an employee of the university and it’s not like he didn’t have a history before he came to the university.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on June 16, 2007 at 1409 hrs
I am much more irate about the Vice-Chancellor who misused UW credit cards for “mucho dinero” and has not been sued for recovery OR, better yet, prosecuted in a Criminal Court.
Posted by James Pawlak on June 16, 2007 at 1633 hrs
Yes, Dan—but only because the UW itself apparently did not take it into a “regular” court. Why not? An even higher standard for evidence, which it didn’t have even for an “academic” court? A case that couldn’t even be walked into a “regular” courtroom, because he would walk?
But about the distinction you make, the UW process—the “academic court”—is “legal.” It’s statutory, in state statutes, invested by the legislature, etc. (Meaning, it carries more weight than, say, a similar body at a private campus, if that’s the sort of comparison you mean.)
So it seems that it is the statutory due process that ought to have been followed first, before the UW administration acted to deviate from its own contract with an employee.
Bottom line: So far, the guy is not guilty. In any court, under any legally defined due process in state statutes. So how does your argument get the UW around contract law? Doesn’t some legal process have to find an employee guilty of something before an employer gets to break a contract?
(If this isn’t clear, see far better explanations in coverage at madison.com)
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on June 17, 2007 at 0014 hrs
Doesn’t the blame for all of this really fall on Chancellor John Wiley?
As I understand it, this started because he wanted to get rid of Barrows, so:
1) Thinking he had found some leverage with the untoward relationship,he
2) Tried to give Barrows the easy way out by letting him use the ridiculous sick-leave benefit for seven months, even though there was no reason, other than Barrows needed time to look for another job, but
3) When the harassment allegations came up, or the sick-leave thing was uncvered (I’m not sure which was first), Wiley tried to shift attention away from paying a guy nearly 200k to do nothing (I assume the “consultant” scam was ill-advised and corrected quickly to the other in-house position), then
4) Gambled everything on the potention harassment dismissal.
5) Now the University has to pay again to make the whole mess go away.Now, I’m no fan of Barrows, but it seems to me that he was just playing the game…by the screwed up rules, such as they are. At what point does Wiley’s incompetence become the focus here?
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on June 17, 2007 at 0151 hrs
If the Republicans were smart, they wouldn’t let this Barrows flap go away quietly. You think he’s the only administrator on the payroll doing little or nothing? Not a chance. He just got caught interviewing for other jobs during his seven month vacation. The Republicans in the Assembly want to produce a no tax increase budget, and the first place I’d look is UW System Administration, where everyone makes 191,000 or better for mismanaging higher ed is this state. We can find good people for 40,000 to whine for more money, which is all Reilly, Mash, Giroux do for a living. We certainly are overpaying guys like Barrows who couldn’t find a job in any other state. What does that tell you about the quality of our UW administrators? The 135,000 dollar settlement should come right out of UW Madisons state appropriatioin.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on June 17, 2007 at 0730 hrs
Wiaggie, you’re right. It’s Wiley, OR it’s UW counsel which screwed up this deal.
Posted by dad29 on June 17, 2007 at 1005 hrs
Wiaggie, you’re absolutely correct—it’s the higher ups who screwed up. And on the fine points, it’s even worse. On any UW story, the coverage always is more detailed in Madison media, madison.com, and it shows that it was Wiley who invented the leave and made Barrows take it when he didn’t want to (and use up his vacation and sick leave first), then when Barrows came up with a job elsewhere (so he did find a job in another state, Wayne), Wiley came up a similar consulting position to keep him. But then when Barrows agreed to stay, the job changed again, at less than half contracted pay, making this lawsuit inevitable. And it shows that Barrows has several other suits pending, which may cost taxpayers even more. It’s a worse mess than this lawsuit story shows.
But Madison stories also show that it has caused a lot of changes in the sick leave policy, so maybe it has saved money at Madison and other campuses. Doubtful that GOP or Dem legislators will make noise about it, though, Wayne—you must have missed the stories about legislators and their sick leaves!
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on June 17, 2007 at 1303 hrs
“At what point does Wiley’s incompetence become the focus here?”
Yes, let’s talk a bit about John Wiley’s “incompetence,” shall we? How about how he went around the world several times sweet-talking wealthy alumni and helped the UW Foundation rake in $1.8 billion in the most recent campaign?
Such an extraordinary effort would not have been necessary had various Governors and the legislature held up their end of the bargain. Thirty years ago the state kicked in roughly 50% of the operating budget for the Madison campus, and today the state share is down to less than twenty cents on the dollar.
If you want to talk about incompetence, that’s the place to start.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on June 17, 2007 at 1925 hrs
Wally, I actually agree that students (and parents helping them) today are getting screwed by tuition hikes that have to cover the huge difference now in state funding, compared to before. So many students are starting life with huge loans.
So—all well and good for what small part of UW Foundation funding goes to scholarships to help those students (and parents). But keep in mind that the Madison campus has about the LOWEST percentage of students who actually are from Wisconsin. So those scholarships are not helping a lot of Wisconsin taxpayers, whether they’re students or parents.
And keep in mind that UW Foundation funding is not about replacing operating costs, still funded primarily from tuition and also from taxes. Foundation funding is for the extras—such as extra faculty, which is great for Madison to have many more faculty per student than do most UW campuses. That is, if they’re faculty who are teaching every semester and teaching as many courses as the faculty at other UW campuses do. (The turnover at some campuses is getting serious, and that doesn’t help students who need them for job references a few years later, for example.)
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on June 17, 2007 at 2003 hrs
Such an extraordinary effort would not have been necessary had various Governors and the legislature held up their end of the bargain. So, we get the typical response…more money poured into the system will solve all problems. So, with enough funding, even if only 95% of professors and administrators are competent, we can get by?
Thirty years ago the state kicked in roughly 50% of the operating budget for the Madison campus, and today the state share is down to less than twenty cents on the dollar. My guess is that the state’s portion is still plenty to actually educate students. I would be interested to see the comparison in total cost per student enrolled, with the dollars adjusted for inflation. It’s all the extra BS that keeps driving the total - overgrown facilities, professors who rarely teach, extraneous degree programs, climbing administrative costs. How much did this Barrows mess add to tuition bills over the last three years…and he did absolutely nothing for the students.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on June 18, 2007 at 0000 hrs
Shouldn’t Barrows have just been fired outright for having a relationship with a student?
Posted by Matt on June 18, 2007 at 0821 hrs
The relationship seems unwise, at the least, but apparently not illegal. Just found this in JS archives: Wiley’s office said “the relationship did not break any university or state rules because it was consensual and because the woman [a 40-year-old graduate student] did not work for Barrows.”
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on June 18, 2007 at 1342 hrs
So we paid Barrows $191,000 dollars a year to use him as a LEGAL dating service for lonely grad students. Whew!!! I sure am relieved it was legal.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on June 18, 2007 at 1529 hrs
Tuergas, the question was why he wasn’t fired for the affair.
Apparently, from what Wiley’s office said, Barrows had to do something illegal to break his contract—or he would be able to sue. And that gets this back to the beginning of this thread.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on June 18, 2007 at 1606 hrs
Right, and there was nothing illegal so he should not have been fired. I would say too bad, because someone with his bad judgement, willingness to take money he did not earn, and now willingness to sue, I hate to see him get paid…by me. But I won’t bother, because the next guy would have been overpaid by me too. Do I blame him? Not wholly, I blame the system that allows and encourages it. To answer the inevitable question, no I would not be doing the same thing.
Two years ago I was unfairly fired from Kinkos. There were two hearings about Kinkos trying to get out of paying unemployment. Both were dismissed, the second with a reprimand to Kinkos about wasting the court’s time. After the second, final dismissal I received 14 letters from lawyers offices offering to take the case to sue them. It took 8 weeks to get a new job where I am so much happier. I could have sat on unemployment for a year and the checks weren’t bad, and then sued Kinkos for backpay and my job back, but I don’t play that way.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on June 19, 2007 at 0908 hrs
Tuergas, good for you. Walking away from unending litigiousness that benefits lawyers more than the rest of us always is a wise move. You opted to get a better job and got a life, instead!
But what really is angering about what happened to you is that Kinko’s attitude, too widely held, that unemployment comp was going to come at a cost to the company. Unemployment comp is earned by workers; it’s part of their pay package, which gets companies corporate tax writeoffs. So it’s workers’ money being banked for them if dismissed by companies illegally, incompetently, etc. If Kinko’s screwed up, you deserved that part of your pay package you never got in your paychecks.
But again, life is short, and you opted to live it, not litigate it.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on June 19, 2007 at 1102 hrs
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