McDaniel was referring to the pleas of Kentucky’s public universities and community college system to insulate higher education from 9 percent annual spending cuts proposed by Gov. Matt Bevin. That battle is currently being fought in the General Assembly.

The KyCIR report disclosed that G. Edward Hughes, who retired as president of Gateway Community & Technical College last September, received a $348,000 “incentive” plan from the college’s non-profit foundation in 2014. The plan calls for him to begin receiving $34,800 annual payments over 10 years, starting this July 1.

The Gateway Foundation is the independent, charitable arm of Gateway Community & Technical College, one of 16 Kentucky community colleges. The foundation’s mission is to “raise funds and awareness for Gateway.”

Senate President Robert Stivers also expressed frustration Thursday with higher education spending in Kentucky, in particular on “golden parachutes” for outgoing officials.

“That is wrong. That is totally wrong,” he said on the Senate floor. “There is a misplaced perspective when we start hearing numbers like this.”

Stivers, too, questioned the role of college foundations, asking if they raised money for education or for severance packages.

Ken Paul, vice chairman of the Gateway board of directors, concurred with McDaniel’s call for an investigation. He said Kentucky’s community college foundations don’t report to the Kentucky Community & Technical College System or to the schools’ boards of directors.

“I’d like to see in the contract for the new president of Gateway that any additional compensation beyond that set by KCTCS would have to be approved by the local board,” Paul said.

Marcia Roth, chairwoman of the KCTCS Board of Regents, said she had not heard McDaniel’s remarks and could not comment on his call for an investigation. But she called Hughes’ incentive payment “unique.”

“No such agreements exist between our 15 other current or past college presidents and their respective college foundations,” Roth said by e-mail. “This unfortunate situation at one KCTCS college and its foundation should not detract from the essential philanthropic support provided by our college foundations for our students, programs and facilities.”

In his remarks to the Senate, McDaniel cited other examples of what he considered to excessively paid outgoing university presidents. He named former University of Kentucky President Lee Todd, former Northern Kentucky University President James Votruba and former KCTCS President Michael McCall, who received a $324,000 sendoff from the KCTCS board when he retired in January 2015.

McDaniel said he has asked the legislature’s Program Review and Investigations Committee to conduct the investigation of compensation.

Nonprofit foundations tied to Kentucky’s public colleges and universities also have been at the center of controversy lately. In Louisville last year, revelations of the University of Louisville Foundation’s payment of $4.2 million in deferred compensation to President James Ramsey and former Provost Shirley Willihnganz led some U of L trustees to complain of being kept in the dark.

Former Gateway board chair speaks out

Since the KyCIR story referred to an “incentive package” that originated in 2005, the Northern Kentucky Tribune spoke to then-Gateway board chair Rick Jordan who had this perspective — and some clarification — to add:

Rick Jordan was chair of the Gateway board in 2005 when the issue of an incentive package came up. Jordan is now Director of Special Projects for Education and Workforce Cabinet in the Bevin administration and vice president of LSI Graphic Solutions in Erlanger.

He recalls that Hughes, after a few years at Gateway, was a finalist for another higher ed position and that he received calls from community leaders (including NKU President Jim Votruba) that efforts should be made to keep Hughes at Gateway so there was no “disruption in the progress” the institution was making at the time.

Jordan said he did speak to Foundation Chair Lee Flischel about the possibility of an incentive package since there were no options for the board to provide one. But neither he – nor the board – were ever informed of the details of the incentive package and had no subsequent knowledge of it, though Hughes withdrew his candidacy for the other job.

In an interview, Jordan, though no longer serving on the board, expressed surprise at the extent of the incentive package as it was apparently revised in 2014, based on Gateway’s current issues related to low student enrollment, the extensive, unfocused downtown Covington project and the well publicized tense relationship between Hughes and the local board.