Hardin received $300,000 incentive to stay at UCA, he says

By Debra Hale-Shelton (Contact)

CONWAY — University of Central Arkansas President Lu Hardin acknowledged Tuesday that he received $300,000 in private funds ahead of schedule as an incentive for him to stay at the school he has overseen since September 2002.

Hardin and longtime Board of Trustees member Rush Harding III discussed the payment on the first day of the new fiscal year — two weeks after Hardin got the money and more than a month after trustees agreed to speed up the bonus during a closed meeting.

Three years ago, the trustees approved the extra-one-time-pay plan, agreeing to set aside $60,000 per year for Hardin to receive it if he stayed five years.

But Harding said Tuesday the trustees decided at their May 2 meeting to speed up the timetable. No one at the meeting said anything about the extra one-time pay when trustees emerged from their executive session. Instead, board members made a general voice vote on all personnel matters afterward.

A list provided to the public of personnel matters up for discussion that day made no reference to Hardin’s deferred-compensation package.

Failing to disclose that action publicly that day “wasn’t anything intentional,” Harding said. “If anything, it was an oversight.”

“There weren’t any clandestine intentions by the board,” agreed Hardin.

Even so, Jack Gillean, vice president for finance at UCA, said, “There is an issue” regarding whether the board complied with the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act in not specifying its action on Hardin’s pay.

Hardin said he will recommend that the board follow a more open process in the future.

For more information see Wednesday's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.