Posted on 05/23/2006 8:29:52 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
Getting fired for incompetence from the University of California system is apparently harder than it looks. How else to explain how UC President Robert Dynes kept his job?
But if the UC Board of Regents wishes to stick with the current administration, the board had better explain how it plans to forestall further UC compensation abuses.
The regents on Thursday supported Dynes despite his presiding over hundreds of secret executive pay deals totaling tens of millions of dollars. Over the past five years, three under Dynes' watch, the president's office approved more than 700 "separation agreements" -- a euphemism for severance pay -- totaling $23 million.
Six UCR executives, for instance, received generous allowances for relocation expenses without approval from the regents. Former UCR business school dean Raja Banker was given an $187,500 housing allowance over five years. Banker was also paid $1,250 a day before he officially began his work, then was handed $13,995 when he became a special assistant to the chancellor.
Dynes insists that the UC system needs such benefits to attract quality executives. But few private firms would shower even their most talented employees with such perks. Indeed, if Dynes pulled such deals as the CEO of a private company, he'd no doubt be looking for a new job today.
But Dynes got a slap on the back from Board of Regents President Gerald Parsky and a promise that "there's no change in his authority." The regents' decision to keep Dynes as president is a slap at taxpayers who support the system and students who pay increasingly high tuition fees.
The regents set up a new "compliance office" and "compensation committee" in an effort to end the negligence and abuse plaguing the UC system. The board says future salary decisions will be "transparent, accountable and fair."
They had better be. Nothing less than rebuilding the public trust of the UC system is on the line.
Another symtom of the various illness that infect the entire political scene in Kalifornia.
You are now not allowed to cut any trees in one Bay Area city with written permission from the city.
Nevada County has had that going for years, actually using aerial pics to see any differences. Now they have an exact opposite set of rules pending, pertaining to fire safety and "defensible space" around your houses. They just seem to only be able to make totally conflicting rules these days. Leaves the property owner in non-compliance no matter what.
After the feds are done with Ken Lay, they should go after these guys.
Is this the "culture of corruption" Nancy Pelosi is always talking about?
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