Ever since her appointment in 2014, FAMU President Elmira Mangum has been very generous in providing “signing bonuses” to a select group of administrative hires.
Records obtained by WFSU show that Mangum paid $60,000 in
such “signing bonuses” to five administrators:
- Brittanian Gamble, director of academic excellence ($5,000)
- Dale Cassidy, chief financial officer ($15,000)
- Marcella David, provost and vice-president for academic affairs ($15,000)
- John Michael Lee, assistant vice-president for alumni affairs ($5,000)
- Milton Overton, athletics director ($25,000)
Brittanian Gamble is the wife of Santoras “Dee” Gamble,
special assistant to the vice-president of communications and external affairs.
According to WFSU, “Gamble was convicted of Conspiracy to Defraud the United
States, a felony.”
But the generosity that Mangum showed to those administrators did not carry over to the FAMU faculty during the collective bargaining process.
“A magistrate issued a recommendation in June that supported
UFF-FAMU’s position that FAMU administration’s salary proposal of 1 percent pay
raise to the base of faculty salaries and a 1 percent bonus was unfair given
that the median faculty salary at FAMU ranks below most other schools in the
system. The overall recommendation was for 3.5 percent,” wrote Elizabeth
Davenport, president of United Faculty of Florida (UFF) at FAMU, in an op-ed for the Florida
Times-Union that ran on July 31.
Davenport criticized the lack of professionalism that
administration’s representatives showed the faculty union during that process.
“The administration team often did not show up, and when
they did, they were not prepared to bargain,” Davenport said. “As one faculty
member wrote to me, this takes its toll on morale.”
She added that FAMU “has the most bloated, highly paid
administration than any other university its size within the State University
System.”
“The problem with the administration’s claim of fiscal
responsibility is that the current administration has not been fiscally
conservative,” Davenport wrote. “Is it fiscally responsible to hire
vice-presidential replacements at 25 percent or 30 percent more than their FAMU
predecessors and provide them with costly stipends?”
Later on that same day of July 31, UFF-FAMU and the Mangum
administration came to an agreement “for a 1.5 percent across the board wage
increase to the base salary, retroactive to August 1, 2014. The agreement also
provides for a $250 one-time bonus payment to all members employed on August 1,
2014, and a 1 percent, one-time bonus payment to all UFF bargaining members who
have been continuously employed at FAMU for 10 years, obtained the rank of full
professor, and are employed as of the date of ratification.”
But in her op-ed, Davenport had already warned that an
increase in pay wouldn’t be enough to improve Mangum’s relationship with the
FAMU faculty.
“The reality is that the faculty [Mangum] once stated was highly
effective and productive is now estranged from their president. It will take
more than a raise to soothe these wounds,” Davenport wrote.