Adventures in university administrative grifting: Ben Sasse edition
By 
I’m so old I remember that when you quit a million dollar a year job in an act of noble self-sacrifice to (supposedly) care for your ailing spouse, you didn’t actually keep getting paid your monstrous salary anyway:
After defending his office’s vast spending as University of Florida president, Ben Sasse stands to receive more than $1 million per year through at least 2028, according to a severance agreement released Monday.
The former U.S. senator from Nebraska had more than tripled his office’s expenditures, which went from $5.6 million to $17.3 million, according to a report by the Independent Alligator student newspaper.
Sasse said big spending was necessary for big change.In a statement on social media, he pointed to the fact that the university’s board “extended me full severance and an ongoing role with the university until at least 2028, suggesting no concerns on their part.”
Sasse’s original contract states that if Board of Trustees Chairperson Mori Hosseini were to determine in good faith that Sasse “resigned under circumstances where there exists cause to terminate,” Sasse would be declined “appointment and employment as a faculty member or in any other capacity at the University.”
It also says if he were to resign, he “shall not be entitled to any further compensation or benefits as President.”
Sasse announced his resignation July 18, citing his wife’s health. His termination agreement, however, states that he will serve as a president emeritus, professor and external advisor to Hosseini and continue to receive his base salary of $1.04 million until February 2028, or until he “accept(s) a full-time position elsewhere or otherwise resign.”
Sasse is just another right wing hack who got praised to the skies for occasionally saying something critical about Donald Trump (not something that is any longer an option for Republican politicians, which explains his escape into the amazingly lucrative world of no-work jobs at the top of the academic administrative pyramid).
But what he represents in that world is, shall we say, something that transcends party lines, as well as other potential barriers to solidarity among the grifting elite.