CSUN University News Clippings

Education committee approves bill to reign in executive pay at UC, CSU

(April 30, 2009)

On a 7-2 bipartisan vote, the Senate Committee on Education today approved legislation to further reign in exorbitant executive compensation at the University of California (UC) and the California State University (CSU). SB 217, authored by Senator Leland Yee (D-San Francisco/San Mateo), will prohibit pay raises for top executives in years in which the UC or CSU budget does not receive an increase in state funding.

“The UC and CSU seem committed to going down the same egregious path as AIG and other Wall Street corporations by providing for their top executives and ignoring everyone else,” said Yee, who is also an alumnus of both the UC and CSU. “SB 217 will ensure that top execs are not living high on the hog, while the students are unfairly suffering.”

Both systems have been plagued with executive compensation scandals over the past several years. Since 2002, top execs at CSU have received raises in excess of 23 percent. Despite the state´s struggling finances and increased student fees, the UC recently handed out over $350,000 a year for two top executives and paid exorbitant administrative leave for two former chancellors, receiving over $300,000 and $400,000 a year each. This is in addition to recent pay hikes of over 22 percent for several senior managers.

In February, it was unveiled that the UC also misled the public regarding a high paid executive, who left her job at the Oakland headquarters in November with a six-figure severance check, only to begin a new job at the Berkeley campus the very next day making her same salary.

“The UC and CSU appear to be tone deaf and continue to disrespect the taxpayers, students, and their low wage workers and faculty,” said Yee. “There is absolutely no justification for these bloated salaries. The UC and CSU administration continuously violate the public trust by catering to the University´s elite rather than serving the students and workers they are appointed to represent. The public deserves better.”

Over the past several years, Yee has attempted to reign in the UC and CSU executive compensation practices by passing several bills including Senate Bill 190 (2007), also known as the Higher Education Governance Accountability Act. The law requires such decisions to be made in open session with public input. Prior to SB 190, many of the executive compensation decisions were done behind closed doors.

SB 217 is supported by the California State Students Association, University of California Students Association, California Faculty Association, American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), California Nurses Association, California State Employee Association, and the Associated Students of the University of California – Davis (ASUCD), among others.

“We have found hope in Senator Yee´s SB 217,” said Talia MacMath, Director for ASUCD. “This bill both highlights a serious issue that has plagued the UC system relatively unabated for years and pressures the Regents to stop thinking of their top administrators as isolated from this global recession. It is truly unfair that during times when state funding causes a de facto increase of student fees of upwards of 10 percent that salaries are increased up to 22.3 percent.”

SB 217 will next be considered by the Senate Appropriations Committee.

Publication: California Chronicle