CUNY Gives Top Boss $55K Raise With Budget Cuts Looming

It must be nice to be Matthew Goldstein. In case you don't know, he is the Chancellor of the City University of New York, that includes dozens of schools across the city such as Baruch, Hunter, John Jay and City College among others. The budget crunch in our state is looking horrific and cuts have been promised across the board and CUNY has no special protection from the axe Paterson and the Legislature wield. So how does the board over there respond?

From The NY Post:

Chancellor Mathew Goldstein's raise puts his annual base salary at $450,000 - plus more than $100,000 for a housing allowance and other perks.

At 7 percent over each of the last two years, Goldstein's boost was just slightly above the 5 to 6 percent raises for vice chancellors, whose salaries were all pushed above $200,000.

"It's twice as high as the raise for the faculty," Barbara Bowen, president of the teachers union at CUNY, said of the chancellor's raise. "The faculty and staff at CUNY . . . are shocked by a salary of $450,000 when the university is facing the prospect of further budget cuts."

CUNY claims they are just doing what they are doing is perfectly fine and within the norms, but this is no normal time. If anyone gets a hefty raise, it should be the teachers, not someone that already got close to half a million a year in cash and prizes. With daunting cuts coming down the pike, this should be a time of frugality and wise spending choices by the educational megalith. Goldstein is aware that CUNY must make cuts of nearly $6 million this year and $9.5 million in the next. So while he is "closely monitoring its financial situation" at the helm, he'll be doing it with a nice cushion on top of his already well-funded salary.