( – promoted by Robert in Monterey)
Pay for disgraced overpaid executives goes up:
University of California President Robert Dynes, who was pressured earlier this year to step down by next June, is expected to get an over-scale faculty salary of $245,000 for research and teaching at UC San Diego.
[…]
Dynes had been at the center of controversy after The Chronicle disclosed that millions of dollars in extra compensation and questionable perks had been handed to some top executives without telling the public or regents. The Chronicle’s findings, reported in 2005 and 2006, were followed by three state and university audits that showed how UC administrators sometimes flouted, circumvented and violated university policies governing pay and perks.
Speaking to reporters outside the meeting, Dynes said he would be taking a yearlong administrative leave at his presidential salary of $405,000 after he steps down.
“It is a sabbatical that I have earned. I have been at UC for 17 years, toward 18 years, and I have never taken a sabbatical,” Dynes said. “I look forward to it to re-energize myself.”
In leaving the presidency, Dynes will have his moving costs to San Diego reimbursed and he is authorized to get a subsidized, low-interest housing loan from UC.
[…]
In related action, the committee gave thumbs up to a pair of 17 percent raises for Hume and Vice President Anne Broome. The full board is expected to approve them Thursday.Hume needs the $62,500 raise to bring his salary closer to his peers, Regent Judith Hopkinson said. Hume’s salary, which will be $425,000 a year, is more than Dynes’ $405,000 salary. Regents Chair Richard Blum [that’s Mr. Dianne Feinstein, for those keeping score in ruling class bingo.] said that when a new president is hired, the salary for the top position would be increased.
At the same time the already-high tuition for debt-burdened students goes up:
The California State University Board of Trustees is expected to approve a $4.8 billion budget request today that could increase student fees 10 percent next year, and the University of California’s governing board is expected to follow suit with a possible increase of 7 percent.
[…]
Fees have nearly doubled at both universities since 2002. Most recently, the 23 campuses of the California State University system raised fees by 10 percent to about $3,521 annually this year, and the 10-campus University of California system increased the cost for undergraduates by 9.7 percent to about $7,494. The figures do not include expenses such as room, meals and books.
[…]
Gregory Cendana of the UC Student Association said that he is not seeing an increase in quality or services with his rising fees. He said he has to work 35 hours a week in two jobs and will graduate with $21,000 in debt.
“I’m tired of paying higher fees when I still have to sit on the floor of my classes,” he said.
So let me get this straight. A decent wage and benefits for food service workers? Sorry, don’t have the money, unless we take it out of stuident fees. Cost of living increases for professors, staff or academic student employees? Sorry, can’t afford it, times are tough, tighten your belts. Keeping fee increases within inflation levels (let’s not even begin to talk about the UC mandate to provide free public tuition, long since abrogated in deed if paid lip service)? Sorry, wouldn’t be fiscally prudent, pull yourselves up by your bootstraps between classes, kids.
But huge bonuses and six figure salaries for disgraced administrators? Sure, the UC system needs “good people,” and their peers are making so much more than them, think of the embarassment of having smaller salaries than the other plutocrats.
They aren’t even trying to hide it anymore. The UC and CSU systems are being privatized before our eyes.
originally at surf putah