A look at UCLA compensation

Editor’s note: This is first in a three part series about
compensation and salaries at UCLA. Part two will run
Tuesday.

For months, executive compensation has been the phrase on the
minds of the University of California’s leaders and on the
lips of lawmakers.

Criticism of the UC’s compensation policy surfaced in
November, after a series of newspaper articles raised concerns
about executive bonuses. The issue culminated in two state senate
hearings this month, in which legislators rebuked UC President
Robert Dynes for lax enforcement of the system’s payment
policies.

A Daily Bruin review of salary
documents obtained through the California Public Records Act
found that in the past three years, UCLA’s payroll did not
contain the kind of questionable payouts to highly paid
administrators occurring elsewhere within the UC which caught the
attention of senators.

But the situation is still complex. While top administrators
have not received big pay raises in the past two years, some have
gotten financial perks and at least one has received extra pay for
reasons UCLA officials have difficulty explaining with precision.
And even with the perks and bonuses some administrators receive,
they are not UCLA’s highest-paid employees ““ that
distinction belongs to the university’s doctors.

Transparency worries

Though compensation, or total pay, for the UC’s top-paid
people is under scrutiny, much of the recent criticism by state
senators has been directed at nonsalary elements of compensation.
Bonuses and paid-leave packages ““ such as the $302,000,
15-month package approved for MRC Greenwood, former UC provost,
after she resigned while facing a conflict of interest inquiry in
November ““ have been the hottest topics.

When budget cuts forced the UC to raise funds by increasing
student fees and tuition in recent years, UC and UCLA officials
said executive salaries, like the salaries of most university
employees, stayed put. Increased executive salaries were going
mostly to new recruits, they said.

Data from payroll records confirms that these statements
accurately reflected the situation at UCLA: Most top UCLA
administrators have not gotten substantial raises in the past two
years, and the salaries of top-paid administrators at UCLA actually
fell behind inflation during that time.

In 2004, no administrator who earned a base salary of $200,000
or more got a pay raise higher than $1,500, and only Frances
Ridlehoover ““ who was chief operating officer for the UCLA
Medical Center in 2005 and has since left the university ““
got a pay raise in 2005.

To stay even with inflation, a salary of $200,000 would have had
to increase by $4,600 in 2004, and $5,400 in 2005.

Like state senators, some UCLA faculty members are less
concerned about the salaries of the university’s leaders than
they are about knowing what policies govern the total compensation
of those individuals.

Some worries about a lack of transparency stem from the fact
that policies governing compensation are often complex and can
leave room for interpretation, said Adrienne Lavine, chairwoman of
the UCLA Academic Senate.

“It is difficult to wade through what is written (in
policy documents) and see what is there,” Lavine said.
“Transparency is really important so that we don’t get
into a situation where something is revealed and it’s a
surprise.”

Additional money for administrators

Though the salaries of UCLA’s top administrators have not
climbed much during the past two years, some of the
university’s leaders receive other forms of payment.

Three of the 22 administrators with base salaries of $200,000 or
more received stipends in 2005, payroll records show.

Stipends are sums of money given for temporarily assuming the
duties of a higher official, according to UC policy.

When asked what additional duties UCLA officials receiving
stipends had taken on, UCLA representatives said the university
sometimes uses criteria for stipends that are different from those
used by the UC Office of the President.

Athletic Director Dan Guerrero, for example, was given a $50,000
stipend each year from 2003 to 2005.

His stipends were given for meeting specific performance goals
rather than taking on extra responsibilities.

Guerrero receives a stipend when the chancellor decides that
“reasonable progress” has been made to improve the
graduation rates of student-athletes, and when UCLA finishes in the
top 10 percent of Division I schools in the NCAA Directors’
Cup, according to Carol Stogsdill, a UCLA spokeswoman.

The Directors’ Cup is a program designed to honor schools
for achievements in a broad range of sports. UCLA came in third in
the 2005 competition.

Bruce Willison, former dean of the Anderson School of
Management, received a stipend of $32,300 in 2005.

Willison received the stipend because he was planning to step
down from his post, but Chancellor Albert Carnesale convinced him
to stay and approved the stipend as an incentive for Willison to
stay in the position until a replacement could be found, Stogsdill
said.

Fawzy Fawzy, former medical director of the UCLA
Neuropsychiatric Institute and hospital, received a stipend of
$3,795 per year from 2003 to 2005.

It was not clear what Fawzy, an administrator, did on top of his
job description to merit an administrative stipend.

“If you’re a chair, a vice chair, a director or a
dean” you qualify for a stipend, said Dale Tate, a UCLA
spokeswoman, referring to Fawzy’s stipend.

“It’s generally perceived” that such stipends
help to further compensate for additional administrative
responsibilities, Tate said. She did not elaborate.

Twenty-five professors who earned base salaries of $200,000 or
more also received stipends in 2005. More than half of these were
department chairs or directors.

Merit bonuses

The largest bonuses handed out between 2003 and 2005 were
performance awards, which are monetary bonuses given to recognize
merit.

Several of these went to four medical school administrators in
consecutive years.

James McCoy, who was chief compliance officer for the UCLA
Medical Center from 2003 to 2005 and has since retired, received
performance awards of more than $30,000 in 2003, 2004 and 2005.
Ridlehoover got a performance award of at least $29,000 in each of
these three years as well. Sergio Melgar, who was chief financial
officer for the UCLA Medical Center in 2003 and 2004, was awarded
$43,347 in 2003 and $31,209 in 2004. Heidi Crooks, chief patient
care services officer for the UCLA Medical Center, was given a
$31,178 award in 2003 and another for $17,055 in 2005.

A total of 24 performance awards were given to people earning
base salaries of $200,000 or more between 2003 and 2005. More than
half of these monetary awards, which ranged from $17,055 to
$63,198, went to medical center administrators. Most of the
remaining performance awards were for less than $5,000 each.

The awards were not restricted to medical center administrators,
and the individuals who received them several years in a row were
doing work that merited special recognition each year, Tate said.
She did not provide specific examples.

Performance awards for medical school administrators are
approved by President Dynes and reviewed by the regents, said Noel
Van Nyhuis, a UC spokesman.

Automobile allowances

One of the financial benefits of being a top administrator at
UCLA is the university’s auto allowance policy.

The chancellor, five vice chancellors and Guerrero receive
yearly car allowances.

Five of these individuals received UC standard car allowances of
$8,916 in 2005. David Callender, associate vice chancellor of the
hospital system and CEO of the UCLA Medical Center, was given
$8,681 in 2005, while Guerrero got $16,822.

Though the dollar amount listed as Guerrero’s auto
allowance is twice as large as any other administrator’s, he
does not receive it as a monetary allowance like others do. Rather,
he is assigned two cars donated by local dealers for his use, and
the allowance listed on payroll records represents the value
attributed to those cars, Stogsdill said. The dealers receive
sponsorship benefits such as tickets and program ads in exchange
for their donations, so the money does not come from state funds or
student fees, and Guerrero pays income tax on the cars’
value, she said.

Carnesale drives a 1997 Toyota Avalon, which he purchased when
he came to UCLA. University policy does not require recipients of
auto allowances to spend them, and Carnesale has received an auto
allowance every year he has been at UCLA.

Who’s on top: doctors

Despite the perks some university executives receive, almost all
of UCLA’s highest-paid employees are doctors.

University doctors, also referred to as clinical faculty,
account for 87 of the 123 UCLA employees who earned base salaries
of $200,000 or more in 2005, according to payroll documents.

UCLA clinical faculty members often earn much more than their
base salaries suggest because of the medical compensation system,
which entitles them to a portion of the money they bring into the
university through performing procedures, seeing patients or
obtaining research grants.

Medical compensation can be paltry for some physicians, but it
can eclipse the base salaries of others.

Philip Larson, an anesthesiologist who had the seventh-highest
base salary at UCLA in 2005, made a modest $1,111 in medical
compensation in 2005, while Dieter Enzmann, the chairman of the
radiology department, made $510,975 on top of his $208,574
salary.

In total, the UC system paid out $449 million in medical
compensation in 2005. Most of this money was generated by the
physicians themselves through clinical practice or research grants,
according to a Web page on compensation put together by the UC
Office of the President.

The medical compensation system brings the salaries of
university doctors near to those of their counterparts in the
private sector.

A 2005 salary survey by the American Medical Group Association
showed that compensation for physicians at academic institutions
nationwide was slightly lower than their counterparts in the
private sector.

For some specialties, median compensation for clinical faculty
was the same as in the private sector, but for others the salary
gap could be as much as $20,000 or more.

It is normal for clinical faculty to be among the highest-paid
university employees, said Doug Kinsella, a research associate for
the American Association of University Professors.

The association leaves clinical faculty out of its annual salary
survey specifically for this reason, because they would likely skew
the results, Kinsella said.

At UCLA, paying such compensation allows the UCLA Medical Center
to compete with the best hospitals in the country, Tate said.

“We compare ourselves not to what’s going on here in
L.A. or in California, but to the Mayo Clinic; to Johns Hopkins; to
(Massachusetts) General. Those are the people who we’re
competing with,” she said.

The UC’s Web site on compensation can be found at
www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/compensation.