Basketball coach again tops UMass Chan chancellor as highest-paid state employee

A man with grey hair wears a white lab coat, a light blue button down, and a red patterned tie.

Photo I Courtesy of UMass Chan Medical School Dr. Michael Collins, chancellor at UMass Chan Medical School

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While workers at UMass Chan Medical School in Worcester once again made up the largest percentage of the state’s highest-paid state employees in 2024, UMass men’s basketball Head Coach Frank Martin once again topped the list.

Martin took home $1.83 million in total compensation in 2024, a $170,000 increase from 2023 when he earned $1.66 million, according to data compiled by the WBJ research department from the Massachusetts State Comptroller’s Office.

Last year marked the second consecutive year Martin surpassed Dr. Michael Collins, UMass Chan’s chancellor and senior vice president of health sciences, as the state’s top earner. Collins had topped the list for six years in a row from 2018 through 2023. In 2024, Collins earned $1.6 million in total compensation, about $200,000 more than in 2023 when he took in $1.4 million.

In total, UMass Chan has nine of the top 20 highest-paid state employees, including the highest-paid woman state employee: Lisa Columbo, executive vice chancellor, ForHealthConsulting.

After Collins, the other eight, according to their total compensation in 2024, are:

#3 - Dr. Terence Flotte, UMass Chan dean, provost and executive deputy chancellor - $1.15 million
#5 - Parth Chakrabarti, executive vice chancellor for innovation and business development - $673,297
#8 - John Lindstedt, executive vice chancellor of administration and finance - $678,814
#9 - Lisa Colombo, executive vice chancellor, ForHealth Consulting - $665,504
#13 - Kenneth Rock, chair & professor of pathology - $612,758
#14 - Katherine Fitzgerald, vice chair of research, professor & director, Division of Innate Immunity - $587,151
#19 - David Flanagan, deputy executive vice chancellor, facilities management - $557,267
#20 - Mark Klempner, executive vice chancellor emeritus - $549,742

In June, Collins announced he would step down from his role as chancellor at the end of the 2025-2026 academic school year. He is the longest-serving chancellor in the UMass system, and at the time of his resignation, he will have held the role for 19 years at UMass Chan.

Collins has led the Worcester university as it has navigated the President Donald Trump Administration’s threats to cut National Institutes of Health funding, in addition to potentially slashing financing to U.S. higher education institutions with their diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.

In March, UMass Chan implemented an immediate hiring freeze and announced future layoffs. That same month, the university tasked UMass Chan Vice Chancellor For Diversity and Inclusion Marlina Duncan to assemble its Advancing DEI Working Group.

Shortly after in April, the school laid off or furloughed an estimated 200 employees and significantly reduced its Morningside Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences incoming class.

Mica Kanner-Mascolo is a staff writer at Worcester Business Journal, who primarily covers the healthcare and diversity, equity, and inclusion industries