At the college in Seminole, Oklahoma, President James W. Utterback was paid $211,416 in Fiscal Year 2010. The governor of Oklahoma is paid $147,000 a year. No other state government employees at Seminole State College were paid more than $100,000 a year, although six top administrators were paid between $90,000 and $100,000 annually. 

According to AccountAbilityOK.com, a project of the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs, total payroll at Seminole State was $6,825,524 in Fiscal Year 2010. That is the most recent year for which comprehensive data is available from public sources of information. 

CapitolBeatOK is studying personnel costs at all of Oklahoma’s government-financed universities and colleges. 

Spending at Seminole State has only declined one year in the past decade, and that was in Fiscal Year 2004. In each of the past three years, while the state faced revenue failures and legislative appropriations were nipped-and-tucked, campus spending went up 3 percent, 4 percent and 1.4 percent.

Oklahoma Watchdog’s methodical analysis of spending patterns at the Sooner State’s institutions of Higher Education has identified a pattern in which schools are relying less on appropriations, and more on tuition/fees, than in the past. However, this shift is less dramatic at this school than at many others. 

In an August 11 story, editor Peter J. Rudy reported, “In FY 2003, Seminole State’s $7.5-million budget was made up of 60 percent state appropriations and 29 percent tuition and fees.  In FY 2012, the $11.2-million budget is comprised of 55 percent state appropriations and 42 percent tuition and fees.”