As OU president, Lariviere answered to a number of different groups. He ran into two problems: OU salaries and OU governance. Before Lariviere arrived at OU, salaries were frozen for several years. OU could not compete with other colleges. In February 2011, Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber asked all the public universities in Oregon to limit payroll increases to six percent. But Lariviere found OU money that did not come from Oregon to give bigger pay increases to faculty and staff. This caused the unions to demand a pay increase from OU for their members.