quote:
Three weeks after Lagniappe published a story questioning why political newspaper columnist Steve Flowers was being paid $96,000 a year by the University of Alabama System Office, he has resigned.

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The resignation marks the end of a peculiar arrangement with the Chancellor Finis St. John’s office in which it became apparent Flowers was being handsomely paid for radio and television appearances he wasn’t making and leading the secretive formation of a political history center the System Office has called “potential.”

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Critics inside the university system, as well as former employees, speaking on condition of anonymity, have said the Flowers situation is not just a one-off issue, but is indicative of larger problems with the System Office management as a whole that has bled into the universities it manages. Some suggested there was an attempt to “hide” Flowers in the payroll system by not listing him in the directory or giving him an office, a phone number, access to the System Office building or any of the things that would be standard for a full-time employee.

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Other things are unclear about the way System Office employees are listed in payroll. Specifically, the System has refused to explain why Ryan, Cole and three other employees who appear in their directory are not listed as having their salaries paid from the System Office budget.

The System has also not answered questions about the intermingling of budgets between their office and individual universities and whether that is permissible under System accounting practices.

Ryan’s salary, which is among the highest in the entire university system, is clearly being paid through the UAB Hospital System, which is a non-profit and does not have an open search tool like UA, UAH and UAB. His salary for 2016 – 2018 was listed on the UAB Hospital System 990 forms. He was reported among a list of the hospital system’s officers as receiving $714,275 in base pay for 2018, along with other compensation amounting to $35,987, for a total of $750,262. He was the highest paid vice president in the hospital system and the highest paid among those appearing on the System Office directory. In 2017, the hospital system reported his salary and other compensation as $670,578, meaning he received an increase of almost $80,000 — 12 percent — between his second and third year. In Ryan’s first full year, 2016, the hospital system paid him a total of $661,857, according to that 990.

Edit - should be noted that Clay Ryan doesn’t even work for UAB. He works for UA but is being paid $750k from UAB’s budget.

Article is really long, but it’s an interesting read.

I spoke to a professor at UAB not too long ago who said all new open positions are in a hiring freeze. The department has to justify the filling of the position with a tenure-track employee. The push is for more adjuncts or lecturers (low paid employees). Yet the UA system is funneling money through secretive means to employees who aren’t actually doing their jobs?

This post was edited on 5/14/21 at 8:25 am