At Oklahoma’s Murray State College, payroll totaled $6,544,046 in Fiscal Year 2010
Published: September 13th, 2011
Dr. Noble Jobe earned $129,075 in Fiscal Year 2010, when he was president at Murray State College in Tishomingo. The two-year community college has a branch campus in Ardmore. Jobe resigned as Murray State president last spring, and is now a biology professor at Seminole State College.
Now serving as acting president at Murray State is Joy McDaniel, the former vice president of administration (financial affairs) at the school. As director of internal auditing at the institution in Fiscal Year 2010, she earned $80,480 in state government pay.
More typical of the pay scale at Murray State was the $47,000 in total compensation paid in FY 2010 to instructor Kathy M. Bowen.
Total payroll for Murray State in FY 2010, the most recent year for which comprehensive information is available, was $6,544,046.
Although state lawmakers trimmed Higher Education spending by 5 percent for this fiscal year, Murray State increased its budget by 7.8 percent for Fiscal Year 2012.
In his review of spending at Oklahoma colleges and universities, Peter J. Rudy of Oklahoma Watchdog found that Murray State’s budget fell slightly (one-half of one percent) in FY 2011.
However, Rudy reports, “Since FY2003, Murray State’s budget is up over 73 percent even with two years where spending dropped (FY 2004 and FY 2011). The average annual increase over the last decade is 6.4 percent, which is more than twice the rate of inflation during that period.”
Murray State’s tuition and fees were increased this year. The institution is relying more on tuition/fees and less on state appropriations than in the past, Oklahoma Watchdog reported: “In FY2003, 62 percent of Murray State’s budget came from the state while 24 percent came from tuition and fees. For FY 2012, the state is only providing 44 percent of the budget while 47 percent comes from tuition and fees,” according to Rudy’s analysis.
A graphic illustration of Murray State’s upward spending trend is found here.
CapitolBeatOK has found, in a study of state government payrolls for 2010, that a total of 2,605 public employees in state government were paid salaries of $100,000 and up. Of the 2,605, only 519 are not in the higher education system.
CapitolBeatOK’s study of state employee salaries draws information from multiple sources, including the AccountAbilityOK.com website sponsored by the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs, the state government’s Open Books website, and other sources.