Even as the University of California was cutting $800-million from its budget in July, leading to layoffs and pay cuts for many employees, the system’s regents quietly approved pay raises for more than two dozen executives, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. System officials characterize the raises as necessary compensation for people taking on new duties, but faculty and employee representatives aren’t buying it: They’ve been asked to do more for less pay, they say.
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8 Responses to Raises for U. of California Executives Don’t Sit Well With Lower-Paid Employees
davi2665 - August 7, 2009 at 9:52 am
How pathetic can the UC system get? While students will be paying more, and faculty will be paid less (if they still have jobs), the administrators will receive pay raises. This sounds like the usual corruption on wall street, and nest feathering at companies where executives are given huge bonuses for taking their companies down the drain. Here’s a suggestion- have the administrators take the largest pay cuts, since they have the largest salaries. Make their future compensation based on performance metrics and the ability to help the University through the crisis. Any moron can manage a system in times of plenty when budgets are no object. It takes REAL leadership to help a University (or any other business) through perilous times, when difficult decisions must be made. The fiscal geniuses who thought up the scheme to increase the pay of top administrators immediately should be made available to the greater job market of California.
11242283 - August 7, 2009 at 10:24 am
Is anyone in California or the rest of the country really surprised? The arrogance of UC executives knows no boundaries. “Necessary compensation” for taking on new duties: in other words, their excuse for subverting the furloughs and pay reductions they have foisted on everybody else.
Ironically, I recently told a group of colleagues here in the CSU that we should start monitoring how often our own administators would have their positions “retitled” with supposed “new duties” during this downturn. It is the classic way in which our administrators reward themselves while using a straightface to say that there have been no salary increases.
_perplexed_ - August 7, 2009 at 11:38 am
The rationale for executives’ raises is, as always, that such salaries are necessary to recruit and keep high caliber people. If UC published a list of executives who moved sideways to a comparable institution in order to get higher salary, they might have at least a case to argue…but is there a single example? I know cases of UC executives being recruited away to a more responsible position, or to a comparable position at a larger/more prestigious institution, but can think of no executive who has simply moved sideways. This is, I think, evidence that UC executive salaries are too high.
nuttyprof1 - August 7, 2009 at 2:53 pm
I am pretty stunned. There is really no excuse and this is an example of bad management. You can’t do that when you are asking everyone else to take a substantial pay cut.
gwsneed - August 7, 2009 at 2:59 pm
I like how strongly everyone reacts to a news blurb that’s a whopping two sentences. There are no details here, no facts beyond the mention that the SF Chronicle published an article. I do not necessarily condone what UC has done here, but I’d like to think that the kind of people who read CHE and claim to be so high-minded would want to know more before passing judgement.
_perplexed_ - August 7, 2009 at 4:00 pm
Well gwsneed, the link to the SF Chronicle included in the CHE blurb has a little bit more detail; the recommendations of the UC Regent’s Committee on Compensation have been available to the public for weeks at
http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/regents/aar/julc.pdf
and the blog at http://utotherescue.blogspot.com/ contains quite a bit of information about the UC budget, with links to much more. There’s quite a bit more information out there, but enough already. Some of us have been paying attention to ongoing developments pretty carefully and simply used this “Ticker” item as an excuse to vent. Sorry to have offended you…I’ll think about you while on furlough.
chandrak - August 7, 2009 at 5:31 pm
Pay cuts and pay raises should be applied to all employees of any system. Employees are suffering from layoffs and pay cuts but the executives are abusing their power by granting pay raises to themselves.
jruiz - August 9, 2009 at 9:45 am
Interesting the SF Chronicle piece mentions Yudof. Here is the poster child for the new professional administrator. A guy who has gone from Texas, to Minnesota, back to Texas, then to California, in search of ever increasing salary levels. And to call these people executives is to fall into the trap of equating them with private sector corporate honchos.