Ann LePage, wife of the governor of Maine, is working as a waitress this summer, USA Today reports. After all, her husband, the governor, receives only $70,000. He is the lowest paid governor in the nation.
Okay.
Maine has seven universities (for a population, by the way, of merely 1.33 million). All presidents earn at least twice what the governor does, and two of those receive more than $200,000. The University of Maine’s president, Susan Hunter, earns $250,000; Glenn Cummings, president of the University of Southern Maine, earns $235,000.
Those numbers don’t include the salary of James H. Page, chancellor of the overall system, who receives $277,500. Nor does it include several high-ranking administrators such as Rebecca Wyke, at $205,000.
So what does this tell us (beyond the fact that Maine residents seem to favor knowledge over governance)?
1) Maine has a lot of universities for its population (one of the universities has three branches).
2) Administrators view themselves as competing in a national market, which apparently the governor does not.
3) The legislature allows them to get away with it.
Finally, it is true other states also pay their public university presidents more than their governor, but the governor’s wife doesn’t usually work in a restaurant.