Donors paying a university president’s salary raise is nothing out of the ordinary, but the way Michigan State University President Kevin Guskiewicz is being paid is raising questions about potential conflicts of interest and who the president is actually accountable to.
Experts in university presidential salaries and university governance who spoke to The Detroit News said they had never seen anything like the limited liability corporation, or LLC, created and organized by two prominent MSU donors: Ben Maibach and Alan Ross. The LLC, called the Presidential Spartan Fund, gives Guskiewicz’s office $500,000 annually through gifts from 20 donors, increasing his salary to $1.5 million annually.
It’s not unusual for private philanthropy to subsidize a president’s salary, said Armand Alacbay, the senior vice president of strategy for the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, which advocates for academic excellence, academic freedom and accountability at the nation’s colleges and universities. However, this money normally comes through a university foundation where a board can ensure the money is being spent for the mission of the university, he said.
Alacbay said the Michigan State arrangement raises questions of conflicts of interest that the university must address.
“I’m at a loss on why they set up a separate LLC,” he said. “When you use the foundation, you have the board of the foundation overseeing that the funds go toward the mission of the university. … I have never seen anything structured in this way, which is why I’m at a loss to explain. This falls on the board. They have to make sure the president is free from any conflicts of interest.”
Two MSU board members who ran this fall for reelection to the MSU board, Chair Brianna Scott, D-Muskegon, and the board’s immediate past chair Kelly Tebay Zemke, D-Ann Arbor, received nearly $16,000 each from people who organized the LLC and donated to Guskiewicz’s salary, according to a Detroit News analysis of campaign finance records.
Guskiewicz said the arrangement is standard among other college presidents.
“There are a lot of universities where part of the president’s salary is paid through a foundation, through private funding and philanthropy,” MSU’s president said. “I probably spend about a third of my time fundraising, which is really important, especially when you’re in the middle of a $4 billion comprehensive campaign. And so, if a third of my salary is being covered through philanthropy, some would say that’s probably proportionately about right.”
Several Presidential Spartan Fund donors frequently support the university or sit on university-affiliated boards.
Maibach, the former CEO at Barton Malow, is also the co-chair of MSU’s Uncommon Will, Far Better World capital campaign. While Maibach “facilitated the creation and covered administrative costs” associated with the Presidential Spartan Fund, he did not contribute money to the fund, according to a press release from the fund.
Although he is retired as CEO, his construction company has had, and still has, contracts with the university. Maibach’s son Ryan is Barton Malow’s current CEO.
Phil Hickey, the former CEO and chairman of Atlanta-based restaurant chain RARE Hospitality International, was announced in January as the chair of the Board of Directors for Spartan Ventures, a nonprofit, tax-exempt corporation meant to raise money for MSU athletics.
Jim Finkelstein, an emeritus professor of public policy at George Mason University, called the arrangement an “ethical minefield.”
“If the university wanted to pay him a million and a half dollars as a president for Michigan State, in today’s market, that’s not an outrageous figure,” Finkelstein said. “That presidency is worth between a million and a half and $2 million a year. … If the university thinks that that’s what they need to pay the president, they should find a way to pay the president that. What they should have done is work with the Michigan State Foundation and found a way for them to make up the difference in some way, but to incorporate a group specifically for that purpose raises all sorts of red flags.”
Judith Wilde, an independent researcher who previously was a professor at the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, and an expert in university presidencies, said she wanted the board to answer questions about how the university would protect against conflicts of interest.
“Do (the donations) give them some kind of extra access to him or her?” Wilde said. “Speaking generically, you know, for not only access but things that they want to have happen at the university again, or undue influence.”
Scott, MSU”s board chair, said she didn’t think the donors had any “undue influence” on Guskiewicz.
“We have donors that have given way more than that,” she said. “So if we’re talking about a conflict or people having an undue influence…, I would think it probably would be the higher donors that people would be more concerned about. And we’re not seeing that.”
According to the firm that issued statements for the Presidential Spartan Fund, the university and the LLC had no agreement. The agreement between the donors and the LLC is not a public document, said Alexis Wiley, CEO of the firm Moment Strategies, who would not share it.
Regardless, Alacbay argued that the “board should be circumspect in a situation like this” and “be privy to every agreement between an outside entity and the university.”
“This is the whole reason why the board oversees what other boards the president can sit on,” he said.
All fund donors have committed to paying the same amount through the five-year period by signing a short agreement committing to make their contribution every year by July 31, Wiley said.
The purpose of the Presidential Spartan Fund, according to a fact sheet released by the fund, is “retaining a visionary president like Kevin Guskiewicz, recognizing that strong leadership is essential to Michigan State’s ability to deliver for its students and its commitment to serving as a world-class educational and research institution.”
Alacbay said there might not be anything wrong with the arrangement, but that it carried greater risks of conflicts of interest without a board’s oversight. Despite this, he said he thought it was good that the donors’ names were released.
“I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt that they’re seeing some benefit to the university that I’m not,” Alacbay said. “This brings more scrutiny than I think is worth it. I’m not quite sure who benefits. … Either we’re at the start of something creative and entrepreneurial or something with a lot of red flags. … Clearly there are very savvy people involved in this group — I defer to their judgment.”
According to a bank statement received through an open records request, the $500,000 dedicated to Guskiewicz’s salary is deposited yearly into an account listed as “PRESIDENT’S OFFICE SUPPORT – ERF Gifts – PRESIDENTS OFFICE OPERATIONS.” Unlike other large gifts, the board does not need to approve it as part of the gifts and grants they approve at each board meeting.
A handful of the donors to Guskiewicz’s salary fund — Bonnie Larson, James Forrest, Ray Howard, Alan Kaufman and Jim Williams — donated a combined $11,825 to the two Democratic trustees’ reelection campaigns. Rebecca Ross, the wife of Alan Ross, donated $4,000 to the two candidates, and Maibach, who “facilitated the creation and covered administrative costs” associated with the Presidential Spartan Fund, donated $16,000.
The trustees are unpaid officials who are elected statewide to eight-year terms. Races at the top of an election ticket, such as governor or U.S. Senate, tend to influence who gets elected further down the ballot on Michigan’s university boards — except when a controversial issue raises the profile of an individual race.
When asked about the donations to both her campaign and the Presidential Spartan Fund, Scott said she didn’t see any issue.
“I have been really elated by the fact that Trustee Kelly Tebay Zemke and I have gotten so much support, and not all of it has been financial,” she said. “I think people recognize the people that are really trying to do the work here, and that are, I think, in their opinion, good and have provided good governance on the board, and so I appreciate their support.
“I don’t know many of them, so it’s certainly no influence of me because I don’t know many of the people that have donated,” she continued. But again, I just think that that’s their way of saying to us that you’re doing a good job, and we want you to stay on the board. So I appreciate it.”
Maibach, Trustee Sandy Pierce, D-Northville, and other current and former board members and other MSU supporters organized an event at the Fred Fisher Mansion in Detroit on Sept. 29 to raise money for Scott and Tebay Zemke’s reelection campaigns. According to campaign finance filings, several of the donors — Forrest, Howard, Larson and Kaufman — donated to Scott and Tebay Zemke at the event.
This piece was originally published by The Detroit News on November 4, 2026.
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