Manny Diaz’s UWF contract doubles education commissioner salary
Florida Phoenix | By
Education Commissioner Manny Diaz Jr. will make double his salary when he becomes the interim president of the University of West Florida on July 14, subject to Board of Governors approval
Trustees at the Pensacola university agreed to pay Diaz an annual base salary of $643,000 with no performance incentive. Other benefits for the one year contract total about $100,000 to pay for his car, housing, and moving expenses.
As commissioner, Diaz makes nearly $324,000 per year.
Florida Education Commissioner Manny Diaz Jr.
During the meeting, trustees said long goodbyes to outgoing President Martha Saunders, who resigned before her contract was set to expire. She has been president since 2017.
Saunders’ contract pays her a $536,271 base annual salary and up to 20% performance bonus.
“We will be going into a presidential search and we will be having a firm conduct a compensation analysis and what we’re seeing historically here through all the universities that have gone through presidential searches is that salaries for these university presidents are increasing. Period. So everyone needs to get ready to see that when the compensation analysis comes out,” Chair Rebecca Matthews said.
“I don’t particularly care” for the salary, said Alonzie Scott, who also had issues with other provisions in the contract.
Scott, who has been on the board since 2018, noted the contract requires a two-thirds vote of trustees to remove the president. Saunders’ contract and trustee bylaws call for a simple majority vote.
According to Matthews, Diaz requested the supermajority vote for removal.
“I hope he can do things even comparable to” Martha Saunders, Scott said.
Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Board of Governors, a board majority-appointed by the governor, appointed a slate of eight UWF trustees last winter. At the time DeSantis said the UWF community needed to “buckle up” and prepare for a conservative makeover. The new UWF board of trustees has caused widespread backlash among the university community and in the Florida Senate.
The university community has shunned the overhaul of the college. It has launched Save UWF, and sent people to Tallahassee to oppose the trustees’ during the Senate confirmation hearings.
After trustees were confirmed Saunders resigned.
The trustees with tenure longer than six months have largely opposed the new direction.
Sentiment
Matthews called the contract “conservative” and said she is “Happy and feel extremely comfortable” with it.
Matthews is the chair a direct support organization to the Department of Education, a position that Diaz appointed her to. DeSantis appointed her to one of his transition committees.
Diaz called his contract “Proper and conservative.”
No votes in opposition to the contract could be heard through the livestream of the meeting.
Trustee Dick Baker, who has been on the board since 2016, said he hopes “we can go forward and not keep looking back or start trying to find things from the past to dig into.”
“I want to be 100% behind President Diaz as we go forward and get the community back working with us to make this the best university,” Baker said, saying he thinks Diaz “desires of doing the very best that he can.”
Diaz will vacate his job in the DeSantis administration to take on the roll of interim president.
His path to interim-presidency mirrors Florida International University President Jeanette Nunez, who was the sole finalist for her job after resigning as lieutenant governor to become interim president. Simultaneously, former President Kenneth Jessell resigned before the end of his contracted term.
While he didn’t vote against Diaz, Scott had reservations.
“My instincts tell me not to vote for this, but Mr. Baker is convincing me to go the other way somewhat to say that we’re going to try to figure out how to make this work. I do believe we have overcompensated Mr. Diaz for work that he hasn’t performed yet,” Scott said.
