Here’s how much Duke’s top administrators and athletics staffers made in the 2023 fiscal year

Curious how much Duke’s top earners took home last year?

Each year, Duke is required to file 990 tax forms as a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, a tax-exempt status granted to the university since 1939. In addition to tracking metrics such as total revenue, expenses, and assets and liabilities, these forms record the annual salaries of Duke’s highest paid employees.

The university’s 990 Form for fiscal year 2023 – which ran from July 2022 to June 2023 – is the most recent report, filed in May 2024. A total of 14 Duke employees earned more than $1 million, five of whom earned more than $2 million, according to the report.

Two of Duke’s 25 highest-paid employees saw total compensation increase of 40% or more, while six saw a 1% decrease compared to last year.

Former men’s basketball head coach Mike Krzyzewski, who has served as an ambassador for the university since retiring in 2022, topped the list for the eighth straight year with nearly $9 million.

Non-athletics administrators

Neal Triplett, president and CEO of DUMAC, Inc., was Duke’s highest-paid non-athletics employee in fiscal year 2023, a position he has held for nearly a decade. He earned $4,295,188 in fiscal year 2023, 77.99% of which was listed as bonus and incentive compensation. This year’s revenue represents a 44.96% increase over fiscal 2022, when Triplett earned a total of $2.9 million.

There were five new additions to the list this year: William Fulkerson, professor of medicine at the School of Medicine and former executive vice president of DUHS; DUMAC investment manager Kavita Nayar; then-Vice President of Finance Rachel Satterfield, who now also serves as treasurer; Gary Bennett, then vice provost for undergraduate education and now dean of Trinity College of Arts & Sciences; and the then interim dean of Trinity College, Mohamed Noor. Their salaries were not reported for fiscal year 2022, so percentage change values ​​were not calculated.

By far the most significant percentage decline – 36.23% – was recorded by Valerie Ashby, who stepped down as Dean of Trinity College in 2022.

Notably, former Executive Vice President Tallman Trask was not on the list this year after being among the top earners for fiscal 2022. Trask retired from the university in 2020 but still received over $1.6 million in benefits during the last fiscal year.

Other names missing from the list include Ralph Snyderman, the James B. Duke distinguished professor of medicine who formerly served as the university’s chancellor for health affairs and dean of the School of Medicine; Nancy Andrews, former vice chancellor for academic affairs at the university and dean of the School of Medicine, who is now executive vice president and chief scientific officer of Boston Children’s Hospital; Richard Riddell, Mary DBT and James H. Semans, distinguished professors emeritus of theater studies who previously served as senior vice president and secretary of the Board of Trustees; and James Roberts, former vice provost for finance and administration.

Athletics Administrators

All four athletics employees on last year’s top 25 list earned over $1 million and were among the 10 highest-paid employees overall.

Although Krzyzewski is no longer actively coaching, he and former Duke football head coach David Cutcliffe topped the list of Duke’s highest-paid employees and posted some of the largest earnings increases in 2023.

Krzyzewski earned $8.9 million, a 21.02% increase from the previous year. Around 65.86% of his income was reported as bonus and incentive compensation.

Cutcliffe earned $4.3 million, a 44.43% increase from last year, just below Triplett with the second-biggest change. Almost all of his income – 99.22% – consisted of “other reportable compensation.”

In fiscal year 2023, then-Duke football head coach Mike Elko and men’s basketball head coach Jon Scheyer were also among the university’s highest-paid employees. Both coaches began prior to the 2022 sports season – Elko’s hiring was announced on December 10, 2021, while Scheyer’s was announced on June 4, 2021.

Elko was Duke’s fourth-highest overall earner in the 2023 fiscal year, taking home over $3.9 million. He also received the highest base salary overall at $3.5 million. Scheyer placed 10th overall and received a total of over $1.7 million.

Missing from this year’s list is Kevin White, former vice president and athletics director who retired in the summer of 2021 but was Duke’s eighth-highest paid employee in the 2022 fiscal year. His successor, Nina King, did not make it into the top 25 for the 2023 fiscal year.

Zoe Kolenovsky
| News editor

Zoe Kolenovsky is a Trinity junior and news editor for Volume 120 of The Chronicle.