Kennesaw State administrative leaders earned among the top 12 highest salaries of public college officials in Georgia in 2018, according to a Patch.com article published earlier this month.
The list includes former KSU President Sam Olens, former interim President Ken Harmon and current KSU President Dr. Pamela Whitten as three of the top 12.
Compensation figures gathered by the Chronicle of Higher Education from 2018 illustrate the salaries earned by the current and former KSU presidents as well as other Georgia public college officials.
According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, Olens earned $78,352 in 2018 after serving in the role of the university’s president for less than two months of the year. Olens first took over as KSU’s president in November of 2016 leaving his former position as Georgia’s Attorney General.
The change in his career offered Olen’s a significant pay increase, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The University System of Georgia offered Olens $430,000 in salary and benefits — $12,000 more than Daniel Papp, KSU’s previous president.
Olens later announced his resignation at the the end of 2017 — officially stepping out of the position in February 2018.
Harmon then took over as the interim president of KSU, serving in the role until Whitten was appointed as the new president in July 2018. Harmon also made it onto the list of top paying officials, earning $377,905 in the five months that he served as interim president, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education.
Whitten served more than five months as KSU’s president in 2018, taking over the position in July and continuing through the rest of the year. In those months, Whitten earned $234,409, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education.
According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, Whitten earned a base pay of $228,320 in 2018. She also received non-taxable benefits of $6,089.
The site also says she was paid $478 per $1 million in KSU’s expenses. The ratio of her total compensation to that of the average faculty’s salary is listed as 3:1.
Georgia Institute of Technology President G.P. “Bud” Peterson earned the highest salary of public officials in the state last year, receiving a total of $1,240,232. The total includes the base salary Peterson earned of $600,413, the non-taxable benefits of $11,371 and what is deemed “other pay” of $537,317.
The website does not yet include salary or benefit payment information for Georgia officials from 2019.
Sabrina Kerns contributed to this article.
