The University of Florida has the most employees among the state’s 12 public universities, thanks to its enrollment, medical facilities, and service to agriculture.

The data are from the Board of Governors, which oversees all 12 institutions and their individual boards of trustees. Those data are supplied twice annually to a state website, Florida Has A Right to Know. These data are from fall 2023.

Athletics

The numbers for UF would be even higher if athletics were included. Both UF and the University of Central Florida are legally allowed to exempt athletic personnel from the state’s database.

Among universities that include athletic personnel in the database, practices are inconsistent. For example:

  • Florida State University includes some high-ranking personnel, but none of its highest paid coaches.

  • University of South Florida includes its football coach, but only a quarter of his salary.

  • Florida International University includes the full salary for its football coach.

Funding Source

Intercollegiate Athletics is one of 13 funds used to pay state university employees. As with athletics, practice varies widely by institution. For example, College of Engineering and Faculty Practice funds are found only at Florida State while IFAS (agriculture) is only at UF.

Rank Fund Employees
1 Education and General 46,232
2 Contracts and Grants 29,613
3 Auxiliary 11,249
4 Health Or Medical Center 6,139
5 IFAS 2,298
6 Intercollegiate Athletics 829
7 Student Activity 633
8 College of Engineering 167
9 Faculty Practice 72
10 Technology Fee 65
11 Student Financial Aid 49
12 Concession Funds 21
13 Board Approved Fees 17

UF Employees

The state database lists employees by each fund used for their salary. Many educators are paid from two or more funds. Therefore, to obtain total salary for each employee, their funding sources were combined in the following table. People who shared a name and title were separated according to their work, as best as could be determined from public records, including UF salary lists by department.

UF Top 10 Salaries

Following is a list of the 10 highest-paid individuals in the state database. Because UF exempts athletics, this list does not include coaches, such as head football coach Billy Napier, paid $7.2 million in 2023.

UF’s top 10 list is dominated by medical personnel and surgeons. Three were paid more than the previous UF president, W. Kent Fuchs.

Mysteriously, the state database excludes Fuchs’ successor, Dr. Ben Sasse. His contract, which is a public record, offers him a base pay of $1 million, plus incentives and other benefits.

Name Position Salary
Mark Bleiweis Professor $1,933,732
Brian Hoh Professor $1,277,291
David Nelson Professor $1,231,264
Wesley Fuchs Professor $1,167,650
Tomas Martin Professor $1,141,527
Daryoush Tavanaiepour Associate Professor $1,079,869
Thomas Beaver Professor $1,028,879
Patrick Han UF Health Physician $1,026,565
Gilbert Upchurch Professor $1,016,141
Thiago Beduschi Professor $1,002,828

Low-Paid Positions

At the other end of the scale, finding the lowest-paid employees is challenging.

Universities employee many adjunct professors who work part-time but may be listed as full-time employees. For example, one UF lecturer (a non-research academic rank) is a full-timer who was paid $471 for the year. Four employees are listed as full-time and paid $0.00.

Instead of individuals, positions were evaluated. The following list is of the 10 lowest-paid positions, on average. Only full-timers were counted, and only positions with at least 10 employees were listed.

A full-time salary of $30,866 a year is $14.84 an hour.

Position Count MeanPay
Animal Care Technician I 53 $30,866
Family Support Worker 10 $30,898
Custodial Worker I 245 $31,489
Asset Specialist I 10 $31,603
Groundskeeper I 30 $31,960
Sterile Equipment Technician 12 $32,168
Laboratory Courier I 11 $32,841
Police Service Tech 13 $33,049
Customer Service Rep 16 $33,209
Agricultural Assistant I 62 $33,557

Quintile Analysis

The impact of medical salaries at UF can be illustrated by quintile analysis.

All UF employees paid at least $100,000 were grouped into 5 bins, ranked by salary. There are slightly more than 5,000 UF employees in six figures, which makes about 1,000 in each quintile. The graph shows that those in the upper one-fifth, or 20 percent, dwarf those in the other four quintiles.

All Universities, Top 1,000

UF’s impact on high-end salaries for all universities can be seen in the following table and chart. The table added pay across all fund sources for each employee. People who shared a name and title, all at UF, were separated according to their work.


UF’s footprint can be seen in the following chart. UF, which excludes athletics, has more that three times as many high-paid employees as the other 11 universities combined.

Story Ideas

  1. Why are some full-time UF employees paid little, or nothing?

  2. Why are UF positions that support animals and families paid less than $15 an hour?

  3. How does FSU determine which athletic employees are funded through the state, and what other fund sources are used?

  4. Why is UF President Ben Sasse omitted from the state database when his predecessors were included?