10 Officials In Larry Nassar Sex Scandal By Salary
From MSU responses to Freedom of Information Act requests
Michigan Capitol Confidential is releasing the base salaries of the central characters involved in the Larry Nassar scandal. The information was provided by Michigan State University in response to an open records request.
Nassar is a convicted child molester who worked as a physician with USA Gymnastics, the national organization overseeing competitive gymnastics, as well as Michigan State University. He was sentenced to up to 175 years in prison for numerous assault charges involving former athletes, many of them gymnasts. Nassar was fired by MSU in 2016. His university salary was $71,412 that year.
Here are the names and annual salaries of 10 people who had oversight responsibilities or were involved in the scandal more directly:
Lou Anna Simon, president of MSU
Role: Simon was the leader of the university. She resigned Jan. 24, hours after Nassar was sentenced.
2017 salary: $750,000
Mark Hollis, athletic director
Role: Hollis oversaw the athletic department. He resigned days after the NCAA told MSU that it would investigate how the university handled the allegations against Nassar.
2017 salary: $715,500
William Strampel, dean of College of Osteopathic Medicine
Role: Strampel was Nassar’s boss. He was charged this week with fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct and two counts of willful neglect of duty in connection with the Nassar case, according to the Detroit Free Press. Strampel resigned from his position in December 2017 and went on medical leave.
2017 salary: $400,056
Kent Cassella, associate vice president for media communications
Role: Cassella resigned abruptly in February. He was the head of communications for the university.
2017 salary: $195,765
Shelley Appelbaum, executive associate athletic director and senior women’s administrator
Role: Applebum oversees two sports in which athletes have accused Nassar of sexual assault, according to the Detroit Free Press.
2017 salary: $170,000
Lisa DeStefano, chairperson of Osteopathic Manipulative Medicine Department
Role: When Nassar said one of his accusers was misinterpreting a medical procedure, DeStefano backed up Nassar’s claim to investigators, according to the Lansing State Journal.
2017 salary: $155,000
Kathie Klages, women’s gymnastics coach
Role: Klages retired in February 2017 shortly after being suspended by the university following the Lansing State Journal reported that court filings accused her of discouraging athletes from reporting Nassar in the 1990s.
2017 salary: $75,768
Brooke Lemmen, MSU doctor, assistant professor
Role: Lemmen took several boxes of confidential treatment records from MSU’s Sports Medicine Clinic at Nassar’s request, according to the Lansing State Journal. Lemmen was another doctor who defended Nassar’s medical treatments as legitimate to investigators. Lemmen resigned in January 2017 as MSU was considering firing her.
2017 salary: $61,584
Destiny Teachnor-Hauk, athletic trainer
Role: Teachnor-Hauk was interviewed by MSU police and the FBI in an investigation into what university employees knew about Nassar, according to the Detroit Free Press. A former MSU softball player said she told Teachnor-Hauk that she had concerns about Nassar in the early 2000s, according to the Detroit Free Press.
2017 salary: $59,909
Lianna Hadden, athletic trainer
Role: At least two alleged victims of Nassar said they raised concerns about him to Hadden in the early 2000s, according to the Lansing State Journal.
2017 salary: $58,977
A website called OpenTheBooks.com contains the salaries of many of Michigan's public university employees. OpenTheBooks.com is a nonprofit whose mission is to “to capture and post all disclosed spending at every level of government.” The nonprofit has posted several years’ worth of salary data for many government workers in Michigan and other states.
Michigan Capitol Confidential is the news source produced by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. Michigan Capitol Confidential reports with a free-market news perspective.
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Study on Arkansas Tourism Campaign Should Make You Scratch Your Head about Pure Michigan
If economic impacts are as stated, the tourism industry should pay for its own ad campaign
Does Arkansas’ tourism campaign provide more return on investment than Pure Michigan? That’s one implication of a study that looked at the returns of the Arkansas campaign, Arkansas: The Natural State. It said that the campaign returns $144 for every dollar spent. A taxpayer-funded study of the Pure Michigan national marketing push, meanwhile, says that Michigan’s advertising campaign returns $119 in tourism spending for each dollar spent.
The difference between the two campaigns — they are different but not that different — means that their results should be viewed with skepticism. Studies of this sort exaggerate the economic impact of state efforts. As one academic put it, “Most economic impact studies are commissioned to legitimize a political position rather than to search for economic truth. Often the result is mischievous procedures that produce large numbers that study sponsors seek to support a predetermined position.”
The incentives are all wrong when the people paying for the studies have a vested interest in promoting the benefits of the campaign the study examines. Some of the authors of these economic impact studies, like those who produced past studies for Pure Michigan, won’t even share how they come up with their figures. You have to trust them.
A different look at the data, though, finds more costs than benefits. Spending an extra $1 million on ads results in $20,000 in extra activity in the state’s lodging industry, a poor return on the money.
If the people in the tourism industry think that such things were an effective use of money, they can come together to keep the campaign alive. That way, the direct beneficiaries of spending will be the people paying for it, even if industry interests have opposed it in the past.
It might be a challenge for the interested parties to find a way to split the bill, though. This would be difficult if the returns on the campaign were small. If a campaign had only a 50 percent return, for example, business owners may be wary that a cost-splitting decision would assign their business more costs than they would get in benefits. But if there really are 11,800 percent returns — the implication of the Pure Michigan report — there should be interest in keeping the campaign alive even without a fully fair way to divvy the costs. The remarkable returns could help lead to a compromise funding solution.
If Pure Michigan interests believe these impact studies, maybe they could also talk about how they can boost their returns up to Arkansas levels. But if they don’t believe the studies, then it’s more likely those reports are just an effort to get something at taxpayer expense, even if the returns aren’t great.
Michigan Capitol Confidential is the news source produced by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. Michigan Capitol Confidential reports with a free-market news perspective.
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