Posted on 12/04/2008 11:09:34 AM PST by NormsRevenge
SACRAMENTO — – Fed up with large pay raises for executives of California's public universities, the chairman of the Assembly's higher-education committee introduced legislation yesterday that would freeze salaries of state employees who make more than $150,000 a year. The measure specifically includes executives and other high-paid officials at the California State University system. It urges the University of California system – which enjoys constitutional autonomy – to impose the same restraints.
“I've been pretty outraged by CSU's and UC's continued executive-compensation practices during a time of, first, budget uncertainty and now full-blown crisis,” said committee Chairman Anthony Portantino, D-Pasadena. “For many of us who campaigned on trying to increase resources to educate our kids, it's hard when certain institutions just don't seem to get it.”
With the state facing a $28 billion deficit, the CSU system has come under fire in recent weeks for approving raises of up to 19 percent for a group of top administrators. Meanwhile, CSU officials have announced that shrinking state support would force the 23-campus system to turn away 10,000 students.
The raises at CSU pale in comparison to a batch as high as 81 percent that UC regents approved last month. At the same meeting, regents warned that the university system also might have to restrict enrollment because of reduced state funding.
UC is still recovering from an executive-pay scandal that dogged the university system for several years and helped drive former President Robert Dynes from his post. In addition, both systems are expected to approve a further round of sharp increases in student fees, which have more than doubled in the past decade.
“It almost seems like every other month you open the paper and see 10 percent, 17 percent raises, and it's just not right,” Portantino said.
UC and CSU officials declined to comment on the potential impact of the legislation, AB 53, which they said they had not reviewed.
“We're certainly mindful of the need to contain costs to the greatest extent possible in this budget environment,” UC spokesman Brad Hayward said. “We will have to take a close look at the details of the proposal when it is circulated.”
UC President Mark Yudof has continued an aggressive downsizing that has trimmed more than $32 million and 500 positions from the Office of the President. But some employees who collected five-and six-figure severance packages were hired later at UC campuses.
Claudia Keith, a CSU spokeswoman, said critics overlooked the fact that the CSU raises in question were scattered over the year and limited to a fairly small number of executives.
“It didn't just happen last week or last month,” she said. “Many of these were approved earlier in the year, before the magnitude of the economic crisis was really known.”
At San Diego State University, Gene Lamke, a chapter vice president of the California Faculty Association, reserved judgment on the proposal.
“It's a tough time in higher education throughout the state,” said Lamke, a professor of hospitality and tourism management. “We're trying to accommodate as many students and provide as much access as we can. So I think we ought to look seriously at all approaches to containing spending.”
While the proposed pay freeze was inspired by perceived excesses at UC and CSU, the Legislature itself has drawn criticism for giving generous raises to staff members despite the state's chronic budget troubles.
Accordingly, Portantino said he considered it important to apply the legislation to as many highly paid state employees as possible.
As such, the freeze would extend to nearly all state agencies, state courts and appointees to boards and commissions.
It would bar until Jan. 1, 2012, any raises, bonuses or overtime pay for anyone making more than $150,000 a year while still employed in the same position or classification.
The bill would not apply to those covered by collective-bargaining agreements or who work at state prisons, which are subject to oversight by a federal receiver. The governor also could exclude anyone he deems necessary to protect public safety.
Portantino said he did not know how many employees would be affected or how much might be saved.
The measure is expected to attract bipartisan support as lawmakers struggle to close the staggering budget deficit in coming weeks. Portantino plans to make it an urgency measure, which means it will take effect immediately if approved by a two-thirds majority in both houses and signed into law.
“Because the state will run out of money in March, we want to get it done as quickly as possible,” he said. A spokesman for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said late yesterday that the administration has no position on Portantino's measure.
To close the latest deficit, Schwarzenegger has proposed $4.5 billion in immediate cuts, which would fall hardest on schools serving kindergarten through 12th grade, community colleges, and health and welfare programs. He has asked the UC and CSU systems to absorb $66 million each in midyear reductions.
The governor also has proposed $4.7 billion in tax increases. The nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office has said a much larger combination of reductions and tax increases will be needed to confront a deficit of $28 billion over the next 18 months.
The state already has laid off about 10,000 part-time and temporary workers, and Schwarzenegger warned this week that additional layoffs could be necessary.
More of Djilas’s ‘New Class’ looking out for themselves. It doesn’t matter if it’s higher ed, the supposedly capitalist business world, foundations, or government. It doesn’t matter whether they bear the title ‘Chancellor’, ‘CEO’, ‘Program Officer’, or ‘Commisar’. The ‘managers’ look out for their own interests against the interests of those on whose behalf they supposedly manage.
To put it in fantasy terms: the world has been taken over by Denothors when we need Aragorns.
Not only is the routine pay increases infuriating, but the number of administrators is ridiculous. The number of provosts and v.p.’s increase for no practical reason. Especially when a campus has less than 20K full time students. What a racket.
The amount of dollars saved is tiny - it's the number of state employees that is the problem. And the massive cost of state-funded health care for the indigent.
A good start might be to make the CSU system entirely Internet-based - no physical campuses and a tenth of the current staff.
My husband is a professor in the CSU system. He has been on a couple of search committees for new profs for his department, and even though the Business department has a lot more $$ to throw around than, say, the English department, he says they were still at a big disadvantage in trying to lure good professors here. Most of the time they’ve ended up with foreign-born teachers who often have problems with being understood by the students, or attitude problems dealing with Americans, etc. Most of the American profs don’t want to get into a system that has so many money problems. (We were lured here by the location ... maybe foolishly!)
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