UC executive salaries lag behind
By Brad Greenberg
Nov. 13, 2003 9:00 p.m.
More than three dozen college presidents and chancellors are set
to make more than $500,000 this year.
Though University of California President Robert Dynes and UC
Berkeley Chancellor Robert Berdahl are on the list, the UC
continues to lag significantly behind comparable schools in
executive pay packages.
A survey of college presidential salaries released this week
revealed that pay packages given to the leaders of four private
universities last year topped $800,000. Shirley Ann Jackson,
president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, was the head of the
class, bringing in $891,400. She also sat on eight public boards,
earning an additional $591,000.
The Chronicle of Higher Education’s annual salary report
also showed that public schools were led by University of Michigan
President Mary Sue Coleman, who will earn $677,500 during
2003-2004.
Among presidents and chancellors whose salary and other
compensation come entirely from the state, Dynes and Berdahl are
two of the highest paid this year ““ both topping
$500,000.
UCLA Chancellor Albert Carnesale’s complete pay package
last year was $471,616, which includes a $315,600 base salary, with
the remaining amount used for housing maintenance and
administrative expenses, UCLA spokesman Max Benavidez said.
“It seems like a fair salary for what is involved,”
he said. “This is somebody who is 24/7 making very complex
decisions that affect tens of thousands of people, as well as the
future of this institution.”
The Chronicle’s report was released at a time when college
students nationwide are facing increasing costs for higher
education ““ from the nominal to the formidable.
Thousands of students have taken on additional jobs, increased
their course load, or dropped out of school altogether to offset
tuition increases.
Mo Kashmiri, a third-year student at the UC Berkeley Boalt Hall
School of Law, was forced to drop out of school on Sept. 11 because
fee increases put the cost of education out of his reach.
But many support maintaining faculty and administration
salaries. Pedro Reyes, education consultant for Assembly Speaker
Herb Wesson, D-Culver City, said because Carnesale’s
responsibilities have not lessened, it doesn’t make sense for
his salary to decrease.
To put it in context, Carnesale would have to work for free to
save UCLA students $10 of the extra $1,150 they are paying to help
absorb the $410 million reduction in UC state funding for this
year.
As many see it, base salaries for UC chancellors, which range
from $269,200 at UC Santa Cruz to $315,600 for Berdahl and
Carnesale, are currently too low anyway.
“If you look at it in a narrow view, the numbers seem
large,” said UC spokesman Paul Schwartz. “But what you
have to do is look at it in the market of chancellors.”
UC salaries currently lag significantly behind average pay
scales for comparable public and private universities.
Carnesale’s annual salary, however, is larger than
salaries for chancellor’s at three of the four public
universities the UC uses as a comparison, including the University
of Virginia, New York State University at Buffalo, and the
University of Illinois at Champagne.
In response to a $410 million state budget reduction that
afforded no funds for salary increases, Schwartz said the UC is
remaining competitive “to the extent our resources allow us
to be.”
The UC recently gave significant pay raises to two of its top
executive positions, saying that the increases were essential to
remaining competitive.
Earlier this year, Senior Vice President of Business and Finance
Joseph Mullinix received an offer from a comparable university that
included a higher base salary and an income supplement that would
offset the loss of pension benefits he would lose if he left the
UC. In May, the UC Board of Regents approved a 19.9 percent salary
increase ““ almost $60,000 ““ which Mullinix
accepted.
In an effort to recruit newly hired President Dynes, the regents
approved a 9.3 percent salary increase for the system’s chief
executive. Dynes will receive a base salary of $395,000 this
year.
“Higher education is an industry in and of itself,”
said Karl Engelbach, chief policy analyst for the California
Postsecondary Education Commission, a group that advised the UC on
how to improve its executive pay scale.
“If they are not paying competitive salaries any longer,
they are not going to attract the most qualified, top-tier
applicants,” he said.
