The new University of Alabama campus president will begin his tenure with a paycheck that puts him among the highest-paid university employees in the state.

Peter Mohler will receive a salary of $800,000 through Sept. 30, 2026 with an annual performance bonus of $75,000 in 2025 and $150,000 in 2026. Mohler also will get $30,000 for relocation expenses, according to a contract approved today.

This is a slight increase, about 2%, from his salary of $753,324 when he served as the Ohio State University’s interim president in 2023, according to records reviewed by AL.com.

Former president Stuart Bell’s base salary was $775,842 as of July 2024. UAB President Ray Watts earns more than $1 million, according to recent AL.com reporting.

Other salaries approved by the board include seven University of Alabama athletics coaches. The lowest was $180,000 for the men’s and women’s swimming coach and the highest was $1.275 million for the baseball coach.

Football coach Kalen DeBoer’s contract is about $10 million.

Mohler joins Alabama during a critical period in the school’s history. UA administration celebrated record enrollment last year of more than 40,000 students.

Meanwhile, the University of Alabama System board of trustees faces a lawsuit from two professors and the student chapter of the NAACP for its interpretation of the state’s anti-DEI law.

President Donald Trump’s administration has invoked an immigration crackdown that swept up one of UA’s international graduate students. He self-deported.

A Trump executive order also triggered terminations of National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation grants, including millions of dollars in funding for UA researchers working on computer science, COVID-19 and kidney disease.

Mohler served as Ohio State’s vice president for research and was acting president in 2023.

He will begin his term July 21.