Australian National University vice-chancellor Brian Schmidt is bottom of pay pile
Australian National University vice-chancellor Brian Schmidt is paid a lower base salary than his deputies, according to the 2019 ANU annual report.
Higher education’s poster boy for personal frugality, Australian National University vice-chancellor Brian Schmidt, is paid a lower base salary than his deputies, according to the 2019 ANU annual report tabled in federal parliament last week.
Professor Schmidt had a base salary of $543,610 in 2019, less than then provost Michael Calford ($586,131) and deputy vice-chancellor (research and innovation) Keith Nugent ($548,487).
However, because of a hefty $90,094 superannuation contribution, Professor Schmidt’s total 2019 remuneration of $649,396 stayed just ahead of his most senior deputy, Professor Calford, who received total remuneration of $639,638. Professor Schmidt also received “long-term benefits” of $15,683 in 2019.
The annual report also revealed that Professor Schmidt — an eminent astrophysicist who won the Nobel prize for physics in 2011 — earned less in 2019 than in 2018 when his remuneration was in the $670,000-$684,000 range.
READ MORE: Block teaching: Victoria Uni’s secret sauce | Block teaching takes off | HECS net catches overseas debts | Heavy job losses at two more unis |
Although the ANU holds a steady place in the world’s top 100 universities and is Australia’s top-ranked institution in the QS World University Rankings, Professor Schmidt is paid at the bottom level of Australian vice-chancellors. He receives well under other Group of Eight vice-chancellors, who were all paid more than $1m last year.
When Professor Schmidt took the job in 2016, he insisted on a pay cut of about $300,000 a year compared to the remuneration level of his predecessor, Ian Young.
This year, Professor Schmidt’s remuneration is expected to fall again because he voluntarily took a 20 per cent pay cut in July when the ANU budget came under pressure after the loss of international students because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Because of the financial pressure, this year about 250 ANU staff have taken voluntary redundancies and the university said last month that another 215 positions would need to go to help close a $103m budget gap in 2021.
In 2019, ANU key management personnel received total remuneration of $4.193m.
Minister canes unis over effect of early offers
As year 12 students approach their final exams, one education minister is worried that early university offers have encouraged them to slack off.
Uni debacle was always going to get ugly
Our two oldest universities are both loudly left-wing campuses – they have activist staff and student groups where the party-line is settler-colonist theory – in which Israel as is has no right to exist.