Robert L. Carothers, president of the University of Rhode Island, earns an annual salary of about $201,000, gets a house and car and receives $58,190 in deferred compensation and retirement pay — for a total of $259,190 a year.

That’s a big paycheck in a state where the median household income hovers around $47,000 and the average state worker earns $46,000 a year.

But Carothers’ generous package loses some heft when stacked against those of other presidents of public research institutions in New England.

Regionally, URI’s president currently ranks next to last.

In 2005-06, Carothers trailed the presidents of the universities of Massachusetts, Vermont and Connecticut. UConn President Philip E. Austin is the highest-paid public university president in New England, at $540,800, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Only the presidents of the University of New Hampshire and the University of Maine earned less than Carothers last year — $247,560 and $212,864, respectively. But both of those systems also have chancellors — a position that does not exist in Rhode Island — who earn more than the URI president.

The new president of UNH, Mark W. Huddleston, who assumed his duties last month, earns $317,000 a year.

All of the presidents also received housing and transportation or allowances to cover those expenses.

Nationally, only four state flagship universities pay their leaders less than Carothers — out of 186 public universities included in an executive pay report by the Chronicle.

As reported July 29 and 30 in The Providence Journal, many of the highest-paid state employees work for the state’s three public colleges, URI, Rhode Island College and the Community College of Rhode Island, as well as the Office of Higher Education. The average salary at the Office of Higher Education was $74,244 last year. Seven of the top 10 salaries in the state went to Carothers and other top administrators at the public colleges.

As with Carothers, their ample salaries lag when compared with their regional and national peers.

For example, Donald E. Letendre, dean of URI’s College of Pharmacy, who earns the 26th-highest state salary — $167,390 — makes less than the national median for deans in his field — $205,478, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education.

The $184,956 yearly salary of John Nazarian, RIC’s president, trails the national median for presidents of master’s degree institutions — $212,800 for 2006-2007, according to the Chronicle.

CCRI President Ray M. Di Pasquale’s salary, $180,000, is below the median for chief executives of a community college system, $212,928.

Even The Journal report’s top earner, Jim Baron, URI men’s basketball coach, hovers somewhere in the middle when compared with other coaches in the Atlantic 10 Conference, the league in which URI plays. However, Baron’s total compensation is considerably higher than his base pay of $286,840, which was reported in The Journal analysis. He also gets $196,768 in gate receipts from home games and at least $60,000 in ticket sales from one away game each season. He can also earn thousands of dollars in incentive bonuses and from a basketball camp. URI said Baron’s pay from the university for 2006-07 was $548,000.

RHODE ISLAND has a long tradition of keeping public management salaries lower than that of other states, says Carothers, making it increasingly difficult for the state colleges to recruit top administrators, researchers and professors.

“A lot of it has to do with the sociology of Rhode Island, and the fact that this state has always been divided between bosses and workers, so the public in general has resented high-paid executive jobs,” Carothers said. “There’s also a sense that people don’t have high aspirations for the university, so they’re not as interested in getting the best people for the job. It’s very parochial. If you say this is how they’re doing it in Michigan, people say we don’t care.”

The combination of comparatively low pay and high housing costs is hurting URI’s ability to recruit and retain top administrators and faculty, he said.

URI’s faculty salaries also trail the national average — about $96,000 for a full professor compared with $106,000, according to the American Association of University Professors.

Another pressure on Rhode Island’s public colleges is dwindling state support. A dozen years ago, the state paid 28 percent of URI’s operating budget. By fiscal 2007, that share shrank to 15 percent. URI and the other state colleges rely more than ever on tuition and fees, which have gone up substantially in recent years.

However, Rhode Island is generous in its support of capital projects, and the new facilities at URI, RIC and CCRI help retain faculty, Carothers says. URI, for example, has broken ground on a $60-million biotechnology and life sciences center and plans to build a new, $65-million College of Pharmacy next summer.

Public universities have had to become creative about finding alternative financing and ways to generate money, says Carothers, who is hoping to establish a research development park in the north section of the Kingston campus that will house incubator space and spin-off companies. He has also talked about building a retirement village for alumni on university-owned land and building affordable housing for faculty.

“We are forced to think about the institution much more as a business than we are used to or than we want to do,” Carothers said. “We need to be a much more entrepreneurial institution.”

WHILE 24 OF the state’s top 100 salaries — and 6 of the top 10 paychecks — last year belong to top administrators in higher education, officials are quick to point out that there are several reasons for the high earnings, and that not all salaries are fully paid with state taxpayer money.

A few deans and professors receive part of their pay from privately financed sources or federal grants. For example, 18 percent, or $30,392, of the $168,844 salary of Edward M. Mazze, former dean of URI’s business school, comes from an endowed chair, not state money. An additional $28,574 Mazze received in 2006 came from accrued sick and vacation time after he stepped down as dean and joined the faculty, said URI spokeswoman Linda A. Acciardo. Bahram Nassersharif’s $184,859 salary dropped to $140,000 this year, after he stepped down as dean of URI’s engineering school and joined the faculty, where $14,000 of his salary is covered by an endowed professorship.

URI’s vice provost for research — a $180,000 position created this year for Peter Alfonso, who will also help start the proposed research park — is entirely paid for with federal funds, and the position is expected to remain self-sustaining once the research park is running and making a profit, Acciardo said.

Despite the fact many higher education officials appeared to receive “overtime” pay detailed in the July 30 Journal story, Jack Warner, higher education commissioner, said that no administrators are eligible for or receive overtime.

A handful employees — including Albert Sevigny, CCRI’s former controller; James H. McCroskery, an assistant vice president at RIC; and Anthony R. Leone, an assistant commissioner of higher education — received accrued sick and vacation time and deferred compensation when they retired, as well as a one-time “early-retirement incentive bonus.” Those were listed as “overtime” by the state Department of Administration, Warner said.

Ten years ago, in an effort to save money, the Board of Governors for Higher Education approved the early-retirement bonus for employees who were at least 58 years old and had worked for the state for at least 15 years. These employees receive 40 percent of their annual salary in one payment upon retirement.

Warner said the policy will be reviewed by the board this fall, and could be phased out.

jjordan@projo.com