Meeting the University of California’s current $450 million shortfall is no easy task. Throughout the 2008-09 academic year the university has scoured its budget for places to cut, freezing senior-executive pay, shrinking programs, eliminating excess expenses, tweaking energy policies and curbing faculty recruitment. Recently, the UC regents have thrown up their hands in budgetary defeat and conceded they will most likely raise student fees in May. The supposed problem: They just don’t know where else to find funds. But considering the regents’ decision last week to hire two executives at salaries of more than $350,000 a year, this board knows exactly where to start.
In addition to these new hires, the regents granted a year of paid administrative leave to two former chancellors at salaries exceeding $300,000. They also approved a 22.3 percent ‘pre-emptive retention’ raise for a financial officer, increasing his annual base salary from $310,800 to $380,000. These extravagant benefits came just two months after UC President Mark G. Yudof instituted a plan freezing 285 executive salaries. Of course, immediately after he instituted the plan, Yudof flaunted an exception in the policy’s language: Administrators could consider salary increases on a case-by-case basis for employee retention.
The university’s decision to tiptoe around its own budgetary measure proves that the pay freeze is like most of the university’s proposals: a publicity stunt that offer little scope in an economic crisis that’s not disappearing anytime soon.
In January, regents decided to streamline the UC Office of the President by shuffling unrelated programs to different departments ‘mdash; supposedly cutting down its spending by simply relocating costs.
In February, Yudof boasted his commitment to affordable education when he passed a plan that fully covered student fees for students whose families earn $60,000 or less. But this program simply streamlined existing aid sources and didn’t cost the university much more than it was already paying.
And now, by abusing its own pay freeze loop holes, university higher-ups have added another shallow attempt at budget reductions to its ever-growing list.
Though the pay freeze is only in place until the 2009-10 fiscal year (a naive time limit for anyone who recognizes California’s budget will take much longer to fix), administrators couldn’t wait a mere 18 months to inflate their already six-figure salaries.
That’s why our university must institute long-term salary freezes that consider a future deficit, and stick to them. Keeping up with market salary rates ‘mdash; as Yudof described it in a San Francisco Chronicle op-ed last week ‘mdash; by offering $80,000 retention packages is not a viable option for an institution that is cutting admissions acceptance rates and increasing student fees.
Stricter limits must be placed on administrative leave salaries and benefits. No employee should receive a $300,000 salary, let alone any annual pay above $60,000, if they’re not directly serving the university. Our public institution simply can’t afford to support a six-figure paycheck when we’re not seeing anything in return.
The university cannot continue to renege on its promises of a more accountable and less wasteful administration. With the possibility of student fee hikes as soon as summer session, it won’t be long until college becomes so unaffordable there won’t be anyone left to gouge.