MU veterinary lab bonuses down slightly

Bonuses for eight faculty members with MU’s entrepreneurial veterinary laboratory slid slightly from last year; however, all but one amounted to more than $100,000.

MU announced Tuesday that the researchers involved with the Research Animal Diagnostic Laboratory, known as RADIL, received bonuses totaling $1.088 million as incentives. That is about $9,500 less than was paid in fiscal year 2003, about $1.09 million, to the six researchers then with the laboratory.

The laboratory tests research animals for pathogens and viruses, and it also creates animals genetically altered for specific medical and pharmaceutical testing.

MU spokeswoman Mary Jo Banken said the decline in the bonuses is due to a decrease in the program’s net revenue during the past fiscal year.

The bonuses for RADIL help offset salaries that, campuswide, are among the lowest in the Association of American Universities, Chancellor Brady Deaton said last week.

Lela Riley, the lab’s director, said in an e-mail, “Faculty capable of operating entrepreneurial, money-generating programs while maintaining strong research and teaching efforts are highly recruited by other universities. To be able to retain these faculty, incentive compensation is essential.” Riley was commenting generally on RADIL another news story that has not yet been published.

RADIL members are part of the College of Veterinary Medicine. There, faculty complaints have centered on whether the bonuses are fair.

“It promotes inequity,” said Leona Rubin, chairwoman for the college’s Faculty Policy Commission.

Some laboratory faculty members have small appointments in the program but get large bonuses, she said.

For example, John Critser, a professor of veterinary pathology and recipient of the highest bonus in each of the past two years, has a 7.5 percent appointment in RADIL, according to veterinary college Dean Joe Kornegay. Riley has a 30 percent appointment, Kornegay said.

Rubin said clinical veterinarians have a 50 percent to 100 percent appointment in the college’s veterinary hospital and receive no extra compensation.

The lab’s doors are not open to just anyone who wants to be involved. Last year, two people were added. Currently, the program is recruiting for an open position.

Controversy about how revenues from RADIL are split between faculty and the university recently sparked creation of a campuswide incentive plan to establish a transparent process for deciding incentive compensation. The plan has not yet been implemented, although that appears likely to happen.

The plan is in response to the set-up of RADIL’s incentive plan, which was developed in 1999 and 2000 with MU Business Services. That plan has been criticized because its specifics, such as how much compensation the laboratory’s faculty receive, were decided without the input or acknowledgement of other faculty in the College of Veterinary Medicine. The plan was developed primarily by Riley, Kornegay and Jack Burns, former vice provost for research.

“The largest inequity exists for those faculty whose primary job responsibility is teaching or research,” Rubin said. “There are no obvious opportunities to ‘incentivize’ these categories.”