Ohio State University Board of Trustees announced the school's new chief financial officer Friday afternoon. The job of CFO now pays considerably more than it did.
Ohio State's new chief financial officer, Geoffrey Chatas, comes to the university from JP Morgan Asset Management.
"I'm incredibly excited. It's a unique opportunity," Chatas said.
Chatas will make $625,000 a year - that's 45 percent more than retiring CFO Bill Shkurti makes. Ohio State President Gordon Gee explained the large pay increase by saying the university needed to align itself with other schools' CFO salaries, plus Gee said Chatas took a huge pay cut to come to Ohio State. "We decided we needed to set his salary at an appropriate level as he comes in because that is what I believe was required in order to be able to attract someone of his caliber," Gee said.
Retiring CFO Bill Shkurti came to Ohio State in 1992 as Vice President of Finance. His salary after 18 years on the job is about $341,000. Gee admitted Shkurti, who retires next month, was underpaid.
"That was one of the things that I always felt badly about. And we did give Bill a rather substantial increase when I came in. But he was underpaid. And so we've gotten great service out of Bill for a long period of time," Gee said.
Geoffrey Chatas had few words when asked about the university's financial health.
"I'm obviously going to need to get on board, and have a look at where we are before I can give you a good answer for that," he said.
Chatas starts February 15.