The Kansas Board of Regents voted Thursday to raise Regents President Blake Flanders’ salary by as much as 15 percent.

Flanders, who has served as board president and CEO since 2015, made $204,000 in 2017, according to government records. The regents voted to give Flanders a “market-based increase” in salary.

“The salary for this board’s president is at the lower end of the lowest quartile for governing board chief executive officers nationally,” Regent Dennis Mullin said. “In order to move that position’s salary to the upper end of the lowest quartile, I move that the board make a market-based increase to President Flanders’s salary of up to 15 percent.”

Mullin said the incoming board chair would negotiate with Flanders on specifics and that the full board would vote on the final negotiation package at a later date.

“Any discussion?” Chair David Murfin asked of the proposed raise. “Does anyone object to that?”

Board members responded with laughter before voting unanimously in favor of the movement.

Flanders received a $21,792 raise in 2016 and a $4,000 raise in 2017.

A regents report from January showed that Kansas professors are paid less than academics at competing public institutions.

The report, which comared Wichita State, Kansas State, the University of Kansas, Pittsburg State, Emporia State, and Fort Hayes State to comprable institutions, found that each Kansas university pays its academics less than competing schools.

The discrepency of more than $20,000 at WSU is the worst in the state.