'We couldn't be happier': Board of Trustees awards FSU president $250,000 bonus, pay raise

Florida State University trustees reward President Richard McCullough with a 10% salary increase and a $250,000 bonus following a strong evaluation of his first year in office.

McCullough's contract as FSU's president gave him an annual base salary of $700,000, which increased this year due to his status as a tenured faculty member.

But with the bonus, McCullough’s salary for this year will be nearly $1 million, and his new salary next year will be about $810,000 with the 10% raise.

“You never know what kind of president you're getting in an interview, or what they're really going to be like once they get on campus. I don't think there's an iota of regret in any aspect of what we've got, so we couldn't be happier,” Board of Trustees Chair Peter Collins told McCullough during Friday's meeting.“The board is 100% behind you.”

Financial rewards have been fruitful at FSU given that the university’s faculty salary increase was recently approved as well. Counting equity, faculty members were able to get up to 5% or more in raises this year

In McCullough’s case, the generous bonus amount and salary increase came after a discussion among trustees, where they highly praised McCullough for the status of his goals that range from enhancing the university’s research profile and improving funding efforts to expanding diversity and investing in academic excellence.

Related news: Q&A with Florida State President Richard McCullough: On football, faculty, the future

“The thing that has been just tremendous is your ability to relate, engage and build relationships with people,” Trustee Jorge Gonzalez told McCullough. “That's a skill set, and not everybody has that.”

The evaluation form is made up of three categories for trustees to choose from to assess each of McCullough's 2021-2022 goals: strong point, satisfactory and needs improvement.

While the evaluation was a strong one overall, comments in the evaluation show what some of the trustees want to see emphasized.

Under McCullough’s goal of building and developing a strong leadership team, one trustee commented, “I like the strides and steps taken in this direction, but we need to finish this portion and get these new people engaged to implement changes we need.”

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Despite some feedback on their expectations, trustees only chose between the strong point and satisfactory categories, with most of their evaluations being strong points.

“A lot of these things are not tangible in three months, and they're not tangible in 12 months — they're tangible over time,” Trustee Vivian de las Cuevas-Diaz said at the meeting. “So when I look at everything that you have done in one year, I'm reminded that we have this amazing university, and we are trying to make it better.”

Strengths that are highlighted in McCullough’s evaluation were his goals to invest in academic excellence and to establish and cultivate relationships with government officials on all levels, where 12 out of 13 trustees identified them as his strong points.

“This amazing mixture of leadership and academia that you have is just amazing, so thank you for being here,” Trustee Jim Henderson told McCullough. “We hope you never leave.”

Contact Tarah Jean at tjean@tallahassee.com or follow her on twitter @tarahjean_.

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This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: FSU President Richard McCullough rewarded bonus, salary increase