The University of Nebraska's next president could continue to rank among the best-paid public university leaders in the country.
Dr. Jeff Gold could earn more than $1.3 million in total compensation after he moves into the president's office at Varner Hall beginning July 1, according to a contract set to go before the NU Board of Regents on Friday.
The board is scheduled to meet at 1 p.m. in Varner Hall to finalize Gold's hiring following a 30-day vetting period required by state law.
Gold, 71, who has been chancellor of the University of Nebraska Medical Center since 2014, was announced as the priority candidate on March 20 following a nationwide search.
The five-year contract sets Gold's base pay at $1,062,573, which is about 10% more than Ted Carter was earning when he left NU to become president at Ohio State University.
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Gold will also be eligible to receive a bonus equal to 15% of his base pay — roughly $159,000 — if he meets certain performance metrics set by the board.
Both the base salary and bonus would come from NU's state-aided budget, which is funded through appropriations from the Legislature as well as tuition revenue paid by students.
Gold also will get other standard benefits, such as vacation time, retirement contributions, health insurance and NU will also pay travel expenses for his spouse to attend certain university events.
The new president will also receive a deferred compensation package equal to 11.5% of his annual salary, or a little more than $122,000.
That privately funded benefit, often referred to as "golden handcuffs," will be deposited into an account that Gold can access after a certain period of time.
Gold will also have use of NU's official residence at 9300 Tuscan Court in Lincoln, up to $20,000 in moving expenses and membership at a country club of his choosing.
If agreed to by regents, the terms of the contract will make Gold among the best-compensated public university leaders in the U.S. when compared to data compiled by The Chronicle of Higher Education in 2022.
In that year, the most recent for which information is available, Jay Hartzell, president of the University of Texas at Austin, was reportedly earning just under $1.35 million, while Neeli Bendapudi, president of Penn State University, received $1.25 million in compensation.
But Gold's starting compensation package as NU's top administrator is below Carter's earning potential when he left NU at the end of 2023.
The former superintendent of the U.S. Naval Academy, who spent four years at NU, had a total compensation package near $1.5 million, including a base salary of $962,638.
Carter also was eligible to receive a performance bonus up to $140,000, a deferred compensation package equal to 11.5% of his yearly salary, as well as a second deferred compensation package totaling $340,000.
He ultimately left more than $113,000 on the table when leaving NU, but moved into a position where he is set to make more than $2 million.
NU regents have signaled their willingness to pay leaders handsomely in recent years in an attempt to retain them at the top of the system with 50,000 students and 16,000 employees.
University of Nebraska-Lincoln Chancellor Rodney Bennett's salary, for example, marked a 37% increase over that of Ronnie Green, who retired at the end of the 2022-23 school year.
When Carter started at Varner Hall in 2020, his salary was $934,600, which was about 70% higher than his predecessor, Hank Bounds, who was making $540,000.
Gold, a trained pediatric cardiac surgeon, has long been one of NU's top-paid employees.
When he started at UNMC in February 2014, Gold earned $775,000 in base salary and received other perks made available to university administrators.
He is currently making $1,031,624 for his dual roles as UNMC chancellor and the NU system's chief academic officer.