We haven’t picked up on a lot of commentary locally about the pay raise the Northern Michigan University Board of Trustees gave President Fritz Erickson last week so let us be among the first to observe publicly that the university is getting good value for the package it’s paying its chief executive.

According to an NMU press release distributed to media, the NMU board OK’d an executive committee recommendation to increase Erickson’s base salary by 2%, bringing it up to $392,700. Erickson will also receive a performance-based bonus of $38,500 for achieving established goals.

“NMU is a leader in higher education in the state of Michigan,” NMU Board Chairman Robert Mahaney noted in the release. “We’ve seen an increase in enrollment when 13 of the state’s 15 universities are seeing declines, we have cutting-edge academic programs, state-of-the-art laboratories and new world-class facilities. All of that takes strong leadership, which Dr. Erickson has exhibited. He set goals for himself and the institution, and he is accountable for those goals. We’re pleased with the success we’ve seen, and part of our commitment to him is to reward him for achieving those goals.”

The board also amended Erickson’s long-term disability and term life insurance policies, capping the benefit amounts through the remaining term of his contract as a cost-saving measure, the release stated.

Erickson does good work at NMU and the proof is in the numbers: more students, more on-campus projects and just a nice overall buzz to the university community that we haven’t witnessed in some years.

A 2% hike and the rest of the package is money well spent, we believe.