A consultant report shows Queen’s devoted 54 per cent of its salary spending to administrators in 2023, the Queen’s University Faculty Association (QUFA) revealed.
In the February issue of QUFA’s Voices, it was revealed that, in 2023, Queen’s spent a greater proportion of its salary expenditure on administrative salaries than any other U6 institution. Queen’s spent $232 million on administrative salaries (54 per cent) and $232 million on faculty salaries (46 per cent). No other U6 University spent more than 50 per cent of their salary expenditures on administrative salaries, with the University of Ottawa only spending 42 per cent.
The University clarified in a written statement to The Journal that “faculty” refers to salaries for those employed by Queen’s who are engaged in instruction and research activities, including those without academic rank, such as teaching and research assistants. “Administrative” refers to all other salaries paid by the University and not reported under the “faculty” category, including all unionized and non-unionized staff.
The chart was found in an “Efficiency and Accountability Report” provided by the Nous Consulting Group. According to a written statement to The Journal, QUFA claimed the University had rejected QUFA’s initial attempt to access the Nous report in Senate, but the organization was able to obtain a largely redacted version of the document through a Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FIPPA).
QUFA also expressed their frustration with the redacted nature of the document, explaining that without the surrounding context, they were unable to truly understand the salary expenditure data. They claimed it was unfair that despite faculty, students, and staff being strongly encouraged to fill in the surveys that produced the data in the report, they were unable to access it.
“Our Members are the people entrusted to carry out the mission of the university—namely teaching and research—but how can we possibly believe that senior leadership truly values our roles if we cannot even be entrusted to see this document?” QUFA said.
In response to this questioning, the University explained that the report was requested and funded by the Government of Ontario and delivered to the provincial government. They added that planning documents of this nature aren’t normally made public as they include confidential information that could offer a business advantage.
Queen’s further explained that there are several reasons behind the University’s higher spending on administrative salaries, including an overly decentralized approach to delivering services, many manual and paper-based processes, and out of date systems all of which led to inconsistency in service quality and inflated costs.
The University explained that they launched the Queen’s Renew Program in 2024 as an attempt to mitigate these issues.
READ MORE: Renew Program prepares to revamp critical services across campus
“Under the Queen’s Renew Program, process improvements are underway in Facilities, Finance, and Human Resources to make services more efficient, consistent, and financially sustainable by modernizing systems, reducing paper-based processes, and standardizing service delivery,” the University said.
They referenced some specific items of progress, including developing a new central and automated HR intake system, improving facilities service to modernize systems and support management services, working toward a university-wide enterprise budgeting and planning system, and creating a new procurement dashboard to improve visibility into expenditures and provide more consistent procurement support.
Tags
Adminstration, Executive salaries, QUFA, Salaries
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