Lucrative extra earnings for full-time top executive

Tekst Arno Kersten - Redactie Onderwijsblad - 7 juni 2022 - 7 Minuten om te lezen

Image: Wim Stevenhagen

Hester Bijl has been a member of the Executive Board of Leiden University since 2016. Since 2018 she has also been a member of the supervisory board of research institute TNO. A great position, she believes, “at the interface of research and society”. In her view, it cuts both ways: “It makes me a better manager in Leiden because it broadens my horizons by being active in a different role in a different type of organization.”

As a university administrator, her remuneration in 2020 was just below the legally permitted maximum of 201 euros (including expense allowances and pension contribution) for a full-time board position. The part-time job at TNO, on which she says she spends an average of two hours a week, earned her another 18 thousand euros that same year. A paid side job in addition to a full-time job, which she says is “doable”. “If you are used to putting in a lot of effort, a little extra can go a long way. For my main position in Leiden, I spend the time it takes. That means long days with appointments, regular evening obligations and reading documents in the evenings and weekends. The time for TNO is easy to keep up with.”

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Added up, Bijl's earnings in the semi-public sector amount to just under 219 thousand euros. This is well above the remuneration ceiling, but it is permitted in the Top Income Standards Act (Wnt). That law stipulates that you may not stack several board positions in order to exceed the maximum. But part-time jobs as a supervisor, on the other hand, do not count towards the standard. Reason: It could discourage potential regulators. 'It often happens in the (semi) public sector that top officials combine a main function as director with one or more additional functions as supervisory director. impose on the free time, for which approval has been obtained from the own supervisory board.

For example, the annual reports of NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences show that board chairman Erica Schaper received a salary of 2020 euros in 200.500, five hundred euros below the maximum. In addition, she spends an average of ten hours a month in her part-time job as a primary and secondary education supervisor at the PCOU and Willibrord foundations, which share a single supervisory board. For this she received 16.470 euros that year. “Because the meetings usually take place around the edges of the day or in the evening, this side job can be easily combined with my full-time appointment,” she says.

Remuneration: examples in 2020

* WNT, including expense allowance and pension contribution
** Indication, own statement to the Education Journal
*** Transitional law WNT

At the Roc van Amsterdam-Flevoland, director Gerrit Vreugdenhil earned exactly on the upper limit in 2020. As a supervisory director at the Stadgenoot housing corporation - an additional position because of his "social involvement in the Amsterdam metropolitan region" - he earned an additional 17.750 euros. The ten hours he says he puts in on average per month are at the expense of his free time. Converted to an annual commitment of about 120 hours per year, the compensation amounts to about 148 euros per hour. Since June 2020, Vreugdenhil has also been a supervisor at the Meander-Prokino foundation. That foundation did not respond to a request to provide the annual accounts at the end of last week.

Renata Voss, member of the board of the Rotterdam school umbrella organization BOOR, is a supervisor at Curio, a large MBO institution in West Brabant. Her compensation for this in 2020 amounted to a maximum of 20.100 euros. She fulfills the ancillary function in “her own time”; an average of about eight hours a month, she informs the Education magazine. Converted to a whole year, that comes down to about 209 euros per hour. Travel costs and other expenses are for your own account, the annual report states. The meetings are in the evenings, preparations at the weekend. “A visit is made to a school about once a year, but of course that happens during a regular working day.”

Diligent

Supervisory boards determine the amount of the remuneration themselves - they are the only ones in the organization that are allowed to determine their own remuneration. These extra earnings usually remain well within the limits of the law. At the same time, nowadays more and more serious amounts are involved, as it turned out an article in the April issue. The examples in this follow-up story are almost all between fifteen and twenty thousand euros. According to the supervisory association VTOI-NVTK, the remuneration is also a translation of a serious responsibility - and accountability - that the position entails.

Few education administrators have more additional positions on their resume as supervisors at semi-public organizations than Henk Hagoort, chairman of Windesheim University of Applied Sciences from September 2016 to the beginning of this year. He said he did and does all side jobs in his spare time. “I carefully choose ancillary positions for which I am asked. Then it is mainly about considering what I can do for the organization in question based on my experience as a supervisor," says Hagoort, who has chaired the VO Council since February.

Few education administrators have more additional positions on their resume as supervisors at semi-public organizations than Henk Hagoort

Partly thanks to the permitted additional income, Hagoort also exceeded the public standard. The difference was greatest in 2016, the year in which he was still head of the Dutch Public Broadcasting Service for eight months (remuneration of 149.700 euros thanks to the transitional law) and from September he worked his first four months at Windesheim (56.307 euros). Including two semi-public ancillary positions, he earned around 220 thousand euros that year, while the standard was 179 thousand euros.

Decently

A side job as a supervisor can best contribute to the knowledge and experience of a director, acknowledges AObdirector Douwe van der Zweep. At the same time, he points to the contrast with the workplace, where teachers, support staff and researchers are also regularly busy outside working hours - unpaid. Directors are covered by their own 'CAO' or have separate legal status regulations, with the Supervisory Board as employer. Van der Zweep sees no reason to treat directors differently than employees. “The level of the board remuneration already takes into account the fact that you are also regularly busy in the evenings and weekends. The maximum Wnt standard is derived from what a minister earns, who also has no paid side jobs in his spare time.”

They are all public functions, paid for with public money. It would be neat to hand over that extra income

Van der Zweep advocates that school administrators transfer their additional earnings from other semi-public organizations to their own educational institution if this exceeds the standard. He points to the collective labor agreement for HBO, which states that employees pay all additional income that has 'any relationship' with the employment contract. “Even if you are a supervisor in a personal capacity, you are asked for such an additional position because you are in the picture as a director. They are all public functions, paid for with public money. It would be neat to hand over that extra income.”

You can find the full reactions of the directors in this story here.

An abridged version of this article appeared in the June issue of the Education Magazine, which is published eleven times a year AObmembers falls on the bus. Read more about all benefits from the AOb-membership.