Among the highest-paid employees of university
The University of Arizona is facing tough questions after reporters discovered that it had paid a former dean over $1 million the year he left the university—and this after years of his being on paid leave following accusations that he had drugged and raped a woman.
At The Arizona Republic, Laurie Roberts writes about J. Lyle Bootman, the former dean of the University of Arizona’s College of Pharmacy, who in 2015 was charged with “drugging, beating and raping a woman.” The case was eventually dismissed, though his alleged victim ended up suing him, leading Bootman to settle with her out of court.
Bootman was stripped of his job as dean following his arrest in 2015, Roberts says. But the university put him on paid leave and kept paying him possibly as late as October of 2018, when he left the university. Bootman’s salary was $253,000 per year; the university, meanwhile, paid him an additional $793,363 the year he left, bringing his total for that year to over $1 million.
From Roberts’ article:
The university would not explain the payout to Republic reporters, citing an Arizona Board of Regents policy restricting disclosure of personnel information. Since when, however, are they allowed to hide how they are spending our money?…
We – the people who pay the bills – aren’t entitled to know why the university decided to pay this guy $253,000 a year to do nothing for four years. Not entitled to know why we had to pay him an extra $793,363 shortly before his “departure” from the payroll.
The fact that Bootman never was convicted put UA in a pickle, I suppose.
A big, fat, sour one that we ultimately paid for yet aren’t entitled to know why.
Sorry UA, you owe us an explanation.
Bootman, a pharmacy professor, held a pharmacist’s license at least as late as February of 2018, according to The Arizona Daily Star. His accuser claimed that he drugged her using a prescription sleep aid.
Read the opinion article here.
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