There’s more to the man behind KU’s finances than paying our staff and faculty like garbage, though that’s definitely part of it.
In April of 2025, Kansas governor Laura Kelly signed off on a budget from the state legislature which includes a one-time increase in compensation for many Kansas state employees this year. For most classified employees, including university support staff, they are now eligible for a pay raise of 2.5%. For most unclassified employees, including professors, they are now eligible for raises from a separate merit pool.
In recent years, there has been a massive shortfall in pay for state university personnel on average, even relative to other state employees, with those employed by our state schools receiving “only one-half of the merit pool given to other state employees.” The shortfall over the last 5 years totals over $27 million, with KU suffering $11 million of that alone. Sure, the inflation rate has averaged about 3% nationally and 2.5% regionally over the last year, but if nothing else, the backsliding now all too common at our state schools appears to have been slowed for a time by this budgeted stopgap raise; on its face, it appears this is a boon for faculty and staff at Kansas universities.
Curiously, however, this does not seem to be the case, at least not across the board. Pulling the numbers from KU’s annual budgets from 2025 and 2026 respectively, it becomes clear who has received the lion’s share of this allocated money.
Professors who received promotions, as one may expect, saw an increase in their salaries. In the environmental studies department, Dr. Ali Brox saw her annual compensation go up from $59,450 to $65,739, which is a 10% increase, in line with her promotion from Assistant Teaching Professor to Associate Teaching professor. Similarly, in the urban studies and planning department, Dr. Ward Lyles saw his annual compensation go up from $104,181 to $119,017, which is a 14% increase, in line with his promotion from Associate Professor to full Professor.
For those whose titles remained the same, however, their compensation scarcely rose, if at all. In the history department, Dr. Sheyda Jahanbani saw her annual compensation go from $75,057 to $76,588, which is an increase of exactly 2%. This seems to be true for many others, be they other professors like Dr. Steve Politzer-Ahles ($68,675 to $70,049), staff like Energy Program Manager Cassi Kuhn ($33,965 to $34,644), and even administrators like Facilities Services Director Shawn Harding ($138,567 to $141,339). For others, however, like Foundation Distinguished Professor of American Studies Dr. Dave Roediger, his compensation went from $236,956 to $233,695, which is a decrease of over 1%!
The average faculty and academic staff salary in real dollars has gone down in recent years, which has been felt most by those at the bottom of the hierarchy. In fact, many in UAKU have claimed they received no raise at all this year.
As if it needed to be asked who, if not the professors, staff, or lower administrators, received the most sizable raises, the answer is KU management and upper administration. At this point, we know about Chancellor Doug Girod, who saw his annual compensation go from $695,000 to $800,000, which is over a 15% increase. Including all forms of compensation, he’s bringing in over a million dollars per year. Other administrators saw large raises, such as Provost Barbara Bichelmeyer, whose pay went up from $457,406 to $490,577, which is over a 7% increase, and Associate Vice Chancellor Lauren Jones McKown, whose pay went up from $193,725 to $241,300, which is over a 24%(!) increase. Still, even many upper administrators saw cost of living adjustments of only about 3%, though many of these administrators are making several times what our professors are, so a nominal raise for them could be the same amount of money as a big promotion for a teaching prof.
One other notable administrator who received a double-digit raise was Senior Vice Chancellor and Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Jeff Dewitt. He saw his pay go up from $360,544 to $412,378, which is over a 14% increase. What is more interesting about Dewitt in this conversation, though, is the role he may have played in administering these raises.
The merit pool for unclassified employees was not distributed like the nominal 2.5% raise given to classified employees, rather it was allocated “based on the performance of an individual, and may exceed or lag behind pay adjustments for classified employees.” As such, there is more discretionary power in how these kinds of raises are given out, who they are given to, and how much someone gets.
While it is not entirely clear who is primarily responsible for administering these raises, it is very likely that Dewitt at least had some say. In his 2021 hiring announcement, Girod said that “Jeff will have broad responsibility for the finance and business dimensions of the university across all campuses.” Moreover, on his official bio page, Dewitt is described as “oversee[ing] all finance and business dimensions of the university” while “report[ing] directly to the chancellor.” As such, while other parties like KU HR may have directly overseen the process, it is very likely that Dewitt had some hand in guiding this financial decision — which just so happened to include massive raises for both him and the man he reports to — be it through the influence of his policies, a nudge in the right direction, or explicit manipulation.
Beyond this most recent financial transgression, which may or may not have been his doing, the history of Dewitt as a professional is also worth discussing here. A man of decades of experience managing large sums of money, his history sheds a surprising amount of insights into the decisions he is making for KU today.
When Dewitt turned 18, he became a military police officer and served from 1979 to 1982 in the US and (West) Germany, working “in concert with German police” to supervise patrols. After returning stateside, he earned his bachelor's degree at Eastern Illinois and his masters degree at Southern Illinois Carbondale. His first finance-related job was a Research Associate position for a Carbondale-based company called Planning and Management Consultants – an exceptionally generic name. While employed there, he did modeling and analysis relating to “water conservation, water demand forecasting and noise management” for the Army as well as places like Southern California and Phoenix, the latter of which he would soon move to for a new job opportunity.
For 25 years, DeWitt served as the CFO of the city of Phoenix, AZ. While in this role, DeWitt espoused some ostensibly good ideas, including working to “maintain high bond ratings; develop capital and funding plans for critical infrastructure; provide accurate and reliable revenue and expenditure forecasting; [and] maintain a transparent financial environment, free of fraud, waste and abuse.” By itself, ensuring that critical infrastructure is funded and that the city will be transparent with its projects is good policy. There aren’t many digital records of Dewitt’s time in Phoenix, given that it started in the 80s. Still, I did find documentation that Dewitt oversaw a consulting firm doing a report on “innovation” for the Phoenix police force, though it’s unclear what role he actually served in that process.
When analyzing his impact on the city, then, I find it far more compelling to analyze where Phoenix is today. On one hand, it is widely regarded as a great place to do business. On the other hand, as a result of its ‘business-friendly’ policies, it has become a hub for data centers despite being in “extreme” or “exceptional” drought and having rapidly depleting groundwater reserves, it fails to shelter over 10,000 homeless people left unhoused as housing in the area becomes increasingly unaffordable., and it lacks adequate public transit for much of its sprawling area, further contributing to its air quality, noise pollution, and exceptional urban heat island problems. While Dewitt left his role as Phoenix’s CFO in 2013, the policy trends over his decades of direction and their long-standing consequences begin to reveal his priorities and ways of thinking about the communities he is responsible for.
In 2014, Dewitt became the CFO of the city of Washington D.C. – a role he would serve in until he came to Lawrence. To his credit, most of the coverage on his departure reflected on his time in the role positively, citing his track record of clean audits and the city’s solid bond rating. Still, Dewitt faced a number of controversies during his tenure in the capital.
Dewitt frequently over-estimated costs and under-estimated revenue, leading city officials to make highly conservative fiscal decisions around which city programs to fund and cut. In one case, he projected a massive deficit following economic turmoil around the COVID-19 pandemic, to which the city council responded by aggressively cutting spending. As it turns out, though, he massively underprojected revenue to a tune of half a billion dollars, leading to a much tighter budget than was needed. He later defended his projections, arguing that having bigger coffers translates to higher bond ratings. In another situation, Dewitt “said he could not sign off on the Council’s plan to take $49 million from Events D.C., the sports and convention authority, and use it to fund repairs on the city’s aging public housing units.” This was the first time in many years a D.C. CFO refused to certify the city’s budget, causing unrest and turmoil. He cited concerns around how this fund transfer would impact the city's bond ratings. Lastly to be mentioned here, Dewitt was the architect of bringing sports gambling to D.C. once it became federally legal in 2018. He was a particular advocate for a monopoly model for the city – a position some have argued “reek[ed] of cronyism” and did more to benefit political insiders than anyone else. Dewitt instead argued it would boost the city’s revenue by $92 million and would therefore benefit their bond ratings. The project ultimately did not do so, only generating $1.8 million – not even 2% of his projections. Unless you hold D.C. bonds, then, it’s hard to say that Dewitt’s tenure there was actually meaningfully successful.
Dewitt arrived at KU in 2021 and wasted no time to start talking budget cuts. On top of the $20 million in cuts made for FY 2020 under his predecessor Diane Goddard, Dewitt argued we needed to cut an additional $26.9 million for FY 2022. He also started “collecting ideas from everyone on how we can be more efficient and grow to minimize FY 2024 impact” and speaking about “the need for shared governance,” but like most of the statements spewed out by KU management, these words were vapid and devoid of meaning; instead of listening to his new community, Dewitt started managing KU’s money less like a school and more like a business.
Most recently, Dewitt championed the Gateway District project to the Lawrence City Council. I have spoken at length about why this project is, to use the official language, super duper ass, but Dewitt uniquely embodies the financial dimension to its problems. At the city council meeting, Dewitt asked for and received “$86 million in incentives via a combination of STAR bonds, tax increment financing and the creation of a community improvement district.” Only Commissioner Amber Sellers voted against the proposal, saying that “the project didn’t address many of her concerns, and that it is going to change the look and character of this community.” She fears that “there will be students that will never know what it means to be a Jayhawk.” Kansas Senator Marci Francisco also pointed out that students’ textbooks will be a part of the 2% sales tax increase as a part of the improvement district. These incentives mean that, whether we want to or not, our already-expensive textbooks will be financing our “new” stadium and its associated conference center and hotel. Joy.
Just like in his time managing cities, Dewitt is focused most on overly-frugal spending and opening revenue streams over meeting the basic needs of his constituents, protecting the environment, or maintaining infrastructure. He has brought sports gambling to KU, be it in the Kansan or the people with Underdog Fantasy giving out money for wagers on Wescoe Beach during the first week of class. He has prioritized sports complexes over transit and housing, refusing to so much as suggest that we fundraise for our essential services instead of for a giant money pit. He has left our academic departments underfunded while continuing to demand tens of millions more in cuts and implementing a hiring freeze, prompting concerns around transparency. He has focused his attention towards vanity projects for donors over the decaying buildings on which we cannot afford to defer maintenance any longer.
And now, the Chancellor has the audacity to give him a 14% raise. Great job, Jeff. You deserve it.
I recognize that state funding has fallen consistently for over a decade now – and we know it’s been inadequate for longer than that – but hiring a miserly-minded money man who has managed entire metropoles since the early years of the neoliberal era is not how to respond to this crisis. These problems did not start with Dewitt, but because of him, they clearly won’t end with him either. Instead, if recent trends suggest anything, they’ll get much worse. This is higher education under end-stage capitalism.
The problem with budget cuts is that eventually you run out of other peoples’ stuff to cut. For Jeff and the gang, though, they seem to have plenty more to slash before they so much as consider a less sizable pay bump for themselves.
And as if that all wasn’t bad enough, my request to connect with Jeff on LinkedIn is still pending. Tragic.
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