YU President Richard Joel earned $2.8 million in 2014, a year when YU’s operating deficit was $150 million, the value of its endowment dropped $90 million, and YU was forced to sell off $72.5 million in real estate. That same year, Moody’s dropped YUs debt rating to junk status, where it remains today.
Yeshiva University, Still In Financial Straits, Pays President Richard Joel $2.8 Million In 2014
Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com
Yeshiva University President Richard Joel is among the highest paid university presidents in the US, despite the fact that YU's finances are in free fall, the Forward reported.
But it isn’t just that Joel is paid what many believe to be an obscene amount of money for doing what some believe to be a mediocre job. Last year, Joel very publicly took a pay cut and then, only months later, he quietly got a deferred compensation payment of $1.6 million.
That means Joel earned $2.8 million in 2014, a year when YU’s operating deficit was $150 million, the value of its endowment dropped $90 million, and YU was forced to sell off $72.5 million in real estate. That same year, Moody’s dropped YUs debt rating to junk status, where it remains today.
YUs IRS filings reportedly show that Joel was supposed to get the deferred compensation two years ago – the same year he sent an email to staff and faculty noting the dire financial situation of the university which came, he wrote, from not taking drastic enough measures in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. But Joel deferred that deferred compensation until 2014 and used the interim to period to make more cuts that had to be borne by staff and faculty. Perhaps to mask that, in late 2013 Joel publicly announced that he was taking a $100,000 pay cut, effective January 2014.
Then, a few months after that pay cut and with no public announcement, Joel took the $1.6 million in deferred compensation, making his total compensation package for 2014 alone $2.8 million.
The Forward notes that compensation would rank Joel among the top five highest paid private university presidents in the US.
Deferred compensation packages are usually tied to benchmarks regarding university performance that must be met. YU refused to discuss what, if any, benchmarks were met in Joel’s case.
Joel announced in September that he intends to resign from YU at the end of his current term in 2018.
A vote of no confidence in Joel by YU’s faculty earlier this year resulted in a statement from YU’s board of trustees strongly backing Joel and claiming it, not Joel, is “ultimately responsible” for YU’s finances.