During the negotiation process with the authorities of the Austral University (UACh), the rector Hans Richter – who is on medical leave – opposed reducing his salary of nearly $10 million and that of senior managers, as proposed. the Superintendency of Higher Education (SES). This proposal was intended to make a gesture to the teachers’ union to negotiate the postponement of the payment of the extraordinary annual bonus. The rector not only opposed losing a single peso, but also threatened the SES with prosecuting the issue if they insisted on it.
On April 7, the 30-day medical license presented by the rector of the UACh expires – in the midst of a financial crisis unprecedented in the history of the campus – and whom everyone accuses of being one of the main people responsible for the debacle that keeps this institution of the Council of Rectors with a debt that exceeds “91,000 million pesos in the last three years”, according to the investigation of the Superintendence of Higher Education, and that coincides with Richter’s management period (2021-2025).
This has also been pointed out by the Academic Council and the Teachers’ Union (Sindoc) of the UACh, when requesting the resignation of Rector Richter, due to his poor management and the observations made by the Superintendency of the branch to the institution’s recovery plan for the next two years (2024-2025).
In a public statement, the Academic Council noted “that a change in institutional leadership is essential, which offers confidence and guarantees to the university community and the regulatory body.” While from the Sindoc they have indicated that any eventual negotiation on the non-payment of the extraordinary annual salary is subject “at least to the resignation of Rector Richter”, questioning “that throughout this period the community has demanded a reduction of the remunerations of the rector’s team, who have flatly refused to assume this need.”
Proof of the above was the reaction that the rector had when, in a telematic meeting with the superintendent, José Miguel Salazar, and the undersecretary of Higher Education, Víctor Orellana, held on January 26, days before the deadline for the presentation of the recovery plan, Richter threatened the educational authorities with judicializing the issue if they insisted on lowering the salaries of senior managers, ensuring that they had already studied it with the university lawyers.
Furthermore, what the recovery plan proposed on this point was only a “freezing of the readjustability of the salaries of senior managers”, a measure that for the Superintendence of Higher Education is only “a symbolic action” to facilitate the implementation of the plan.
“The University could consider the possibility of going further in this area, producing an effective cut in the remuneration of senior managers. Although its success is not guaranteed, a signal of that order could contribute, for example, to bringing closer positions with the Teachers’ Union to reach an agreement on the extraordinary annual bonus,” states the SES document to which The counter had access.
Asked about this telematic meeting last January and Rector Richter’s threat to judicialize the issue, the Undersecretary of Higher Education, Víctor Orellana, stated that they have “had different meetings with the Austral University and its representatives, seeking to contribute to overcoming the current difficulties facing the university. It is not our place to pronounce specifically on those situations that today are in the power of the Superintendency of Higher Education, which is the entity that has the supervisory powers and that must carry out this process. As a Government, we are going to support the decisions made by the SES aimed at ensuring the sustainability of the university in the medium and long term, which is very important for the Los Ríos Region and for the country.”
However, because it has not yet been possible to reach an agreement with the teachers’ union organization on the postponement of the payment of the annual bonus, the recovery plan is at a complex point of progress, since it is not possible to guarantee the Superintendency that the university will have the resources to cancel the bonus, which is equivalent to $3.5 billion, according to the campus itself.
For this reason, and very far from the position of Rector Richter, the Pro-Rector of the UACh, José Dörner, announced this Monday that he will voluntarily reduce his salary, calling on all managers to join the measure, as a gesture to convince the Teachers’ Union to postpone the payment of the extraordinary annual bonus. Furthermore, Dörner highlighted the willingness shown by the Superintendency to approve the recovery plan, “as long as there is a cash flow without a budget deficit for 2024,” he said, which is why they continue negotiating with Sindoc.
Zero km trucks
Although both the Academic Council and the Teachers’ Union have requested the resignation of Rector Richter, mainly due to his role in the crisis at the Universidad Austral, until now it was unknown that during the negotiation process – where both entities were asked to resign of the extraordinary annual bonus and, in turn, the rector refused to reduce his salary and that of senior managers – he and his wife acquired two Ford brand trucks from the year 2024 for nearly $60 million.
In the case of Hans Richter, it is a 4×4 Ford Bronco Sport Wildtrak 2.0 automatic, whose price is around 32 or 38 million pesos, depending on the type of financing. While his wife, Patricia Meneses Zieballe – who is part of the UACh Strategic Development Management team – appears with a Ford Territory 1.5 automatic truck, whose value fluctuates between 20 and 28 million pesos.
At the Austral University, it is still a mystery what Rector Richter will do once his medical leave ends, especially given the request for resignation made by the deans, teachers and workers of the university, who see in His figure is an element that hinders the work that the university community is doing to remedy the financial crisis.
In fact, in the observations of the recovery plan made by the Superintendency of Higher Education, the supervisory body confirmed that the situation of financial deficit “was significantly accentuated during the last two closures”, registering “operational losses of increasing magnitude due mainly to the sustained increase in the remuneration of academics and staff administrators”, verifying “net losses of $28,467 million in the year 2022 and a financial debt that reaches $91,868 million.”
