DR. MARY SUE COLEMAN went to Lansing in 2011 to sing the praises of her university and to stave off threatened cuts to the $316 million dollar allocation the state of Michigan made to the University of Michigan in 2010. In her testimony, Dr. Coleman noted the university had cut more than $130 million in the previous six years by scaling back on expenses ranging from utility costs to planting fewer flowers. U-M plans to trim another $120 million from its budget by 2017, she told legislators. If the cuts projected between 2010 and 2017 are actually realized, the University of Michigan will have trimmed $250,000,000 from its budget over a period of 12 years, or an average of $20.8 million dollars per year.

At the same time Dr. Coleman told state legislators that her institution was spending less on “flowers,” and “projecting” total cuts of less than 7 percent to a $4 billion dollar budget over a period of 12 years, she employed 94 deans whom the public were told, in 2009 were paid, collectively, $17.856 million dollars plus an additional $6 million dollars for benefits.

However, thanks to a group of 12 tenured faculty and an anonymous employee or employees, the public has just learned that Dr. Coleman’s administration was touting cost cuts to state legislators while secretly inflating the pay of many of the college’s upper-level administrators through a scheme that awarded administrators incentives and other salary supplements that in several instances secretly doubled individuals’ annual pay. In 2009, the university’s Chief Investment officer Erik Lundberg was paid a base salary of $513,451 and given a secret salary enhancement of $812,232. In 2010, Mr. Lundberg’s base salary was raised to $603,047 and he received a secret salary enhancement of $731,493.

Dr. Coleman not only played state legislators for fools when she spoke before them about her institution’s economizing, she gamed Governor Snyder, as well. In February 2013, Dr. Coleman appeared before the Michigan House Appropriations Subcommittee on Higher Education and told the group: “We know we have to have tuition increases, particularly because the state has not been able to invest in us the way we would like. I am very cognizant of the burdens on families, but I am also cognizant of my responsibility to keep this place competitive.”

In this year’s budget the governor proposes to add $80.3 million in additional higher education funding, of which U-M which will receive a share. How much of that money will go toward salary enhancements such as Mr. Lundberg’s as opposed to instruction?

The percentage of its revenue U-M spends on instruction and financial aid for students has fallen despite total state allocations that have surpassed $1 billion over the past four years. This newspaper published a feature in which it was revealed that, as a percentage of total expenditures, the amount U-M allocates to centrally awarded financial aid has increased just 1.8 percent over the past decade.

This secret pay scandal, along with the Department of Education’s investigation of alleged Title IX violations related to sexual violence and sexual harassment have tarnished Dr. Coleman’s legacy and are an embarrassment to the University of Michigan’s reputation. Dr. Coleman not only misled the public about millions in hidden pay incentives given over to already extremely well-paid public employees, she has remained silent on the subject of the incentives despite national news coverage.

We urge incoming president Dr. Mark Schlissel to end the secret payments to administrators. We also urge him to engage in frank dialog with those who have called for the university to bring administrator pay back into line with that of other public institutions.