CSU prez, chancellor contracts worth over $3.75m

Newly hired CSU Chancellor Joe Blake has promised to put transparency at the top of his agenda and in that spirit, Face the State is publishing employment contracts for Blake and President Tony Frank.

Blake, who will oversee Colorado State University's Fort Collins, Pueblo and online campuses, will be paid annually a base salary of $275,000, a $9,000 annual vehicle allowance, plus up to $50,000 a year in performance-based bonuses (PDF). He will also receive health and dental insurance at an unspecified additional cost.

Frank's base salary is $350,000 plus a $42,000 allowance for housing and automobiles. Frank's benefits also include up to $25,000 annually for a performance based bonus, plus health, major medical, vision, dental, term life and disability insurance (PDF).

Blake and Frank were both awarded five-year contracts worth a total of $3.755 million, and do not provide for annual raises. Larry Penley, who most recently served as both the president and chancellor of CSU, earned $389,000 per year, before stepping down last November. The process by which CSU selected its new top management has been challenged in court, with a media consortium challenging trustees violated state open-meetings law by discussing the picks in private.

The terms of both contracts are otherwise standard, detailing responsibilities for both executives, termination processes and other general provisions.