News-Record.com

N.C. State must re-examine more than 800 employment contracts after misinterpreting a UNC system policy intended to add a layer of scrutiny to unusually large raises.

The most notable salary increase will still likely be the one given to first lady Mary Easley, whose recent 88 percent raise -- to $170,000 -- prompted the review. But last year, NCSU had 822 fixed-term workers on its rolls, employees ranging from top administrators to one-course lecturers to research technicians paid by federal grants.

NCSU will look at all such contracts to see if any workers received pay raises topping 15 percent and $10,000. Raises at that level must be approved by the UNC system's Board of Governors. Easley's new contract, a five-year term as an executive-in-residence with duties including directing a seminar series, easily met that criteria but was never reviewed by the university system board.

"We know now that regardless of how they're appointed, the difference in salary needs to be approved," NCSU Provost Larry Nielsen said Thursday. "We will abide by that."

Nielsen said he didn't know how long it will take to review all the contracts, but he said he doesn't expect to discover a lot of pay increases above the acceptable range. The work must be concluded by September; that's when the UNC system board next meets.

The raise policy does not apply to new hires, and Nielsen reiterated Thursday his belief that Easley's raise approved by the campus earlier this year amounted to a new job, because she was first hired in 2005 for a three-year term with an $80,000 salary. Her new role, though with the same job title, has expanded duties and a five-year term.

Easley was a prosecutor for 10 years and in private law practice for eight. She also taught law at N.C. Central University. Since being hired at NCSU, she has taught three classes a year and directed a speaker series whose participants have included former U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala and U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican. Her new duties include teaching two classes, coordinating law education initiatives and creating a public safety leadership center.

She is the only executive-in-residence under the provost's office, so Nielsen used approved salary ranges for full, tenured professors in business law, business management and public administration as guidelines. He acknowledged that doing so wasn't a perfect comparison, because full professors have work expectations that differ from Easley's.

"It was the most comparable" range, he said.

The acceptable salary range for a full professor in business law is between $123,300 and $328,600, meaning that NCSU can hire a new business law professor at any salary within that range without getting UNC system approval.

Easley's job was Nielsen's idea, he said, and stemmed from his desire for NCSU to have a top-tier seminar series. He heard that Easley was ending her time teaching law at N.C. Central University several years ago and pitched the job to her. It was created for her and was not advertised as a job opening, a mechanism Nielsen said the university can do.

"When we see a circumstance when special needs of the institution match up with a person, we can go that route," he said.

Given that Easley's new job and salary must be approved by the UNC system board, it isn't clear whether she will be cashing an NCSU paycheck between now and the vote of the university system board in September.

"We haven't addressed it yet," Nielsen said.