Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear ‘losing confidence’ as UK creates $1M post-retirement job for AD

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear is questioning the "management and decision-making" at the University of Kentucky, which includes the creation of a nearly $1 million salary job that Wildcats athletic director Mitch Barnhart will take on following his retirement in July.

He shared his "growing increasingly" concerns about the university in a statement shared on X (formerly Twitter) on Wednesday, April 21.

"I am losing confidence and growing increasingly concerned with the management and decision-making at the University of Kentucky," Beshear said. "... I worry that these actions are related to certain donors pushing partisan and undue outside influence onto the university."

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The Louisville Courier Journal, part of the USA TODAY Network, confirmed through a spokesperson of Beshear's office that the governor's comments of "new $1 million job that has no defined duties" refer to the job that Barnhart will take on at the university after his retirement in July.

Barnhart, who has served as the Wildcats' athletic director since 2002, announced in March that he was retiring. His new role at Kentucky will be serving as the first executive-in-residence of the Kentucky Sport and Workforce Initiative, which will pay him a salary of $950,000, according to the Courier Journal.

"I’m not sure there’s ever a finish line for leaders," Barnhart said in a statement back in March on his retirement as athletic director. "You get to a spot where you finish one job and the next one starts and then the next task and the next task and the next task. At some point, you have to say the baton is someone else’s to carry.