Whether you’re politically active, chronically jaded or
basically apathetic about campus issues, the latest vote by the UC
Board of Regents should have you grabbing your signs,
Berkeley-style, and getting some serious protest on.
At almost the same time that the UC Board of Regents increased
fees for all students, they raised the already high salaries of UC
President Robert Dynes, campus chancellors and other executives by
an average of 2.5 percent.
That’s another $10,000 each for the UC president and his
friends.
Frankly, I’m not surprised by the board’s
predictably shortsighted response to the budget situation that
Bruce B. Darling, senior vice president of university affairs,
called an “educational crisis.”
It is astounding that the regents continue to reward the
higher-ups, while many University of California students incur
years of debt just to attend the school.
The annual total for resident undergraduate and graduate
students is not cheap: somewhere between $23,000 and $24,000.
And the pay raises couldn’t have come at a more
inappropriate moment. On Nov. 16, the board voted to increase
undergraduate student fees by 8 percent and graduate student fees
by 10 percent.
Maybe it wouldn’t seem so tacky if the regents had waited
five months after the fee increase before giving more money to
overpaid high-level employees. But doing it the day after they
approve a budget that raises our fees for the fifth-straight year
is unthinkable.
Top that off with the board’s audacious attempt to justify
its actions by calling them “modest annual salary
increases” in a press release.
Of course, the head honchos would claim that raising wages helps
them stay competitive.
After all, they argue that the current salary of the average UC
chancellor is lower than the “average salary of the
UC’s private university competitors by 75 percent.”
Boo, and might I add, hoo.
Many UC officials have already received much more than
they’ve reported. According to the San Francisco Chronicle,
UC employees received more than $871 million in bonuses,
allocations and other cash supplements last year, enough to cover
much of the fee hikes that have been foisted on the student body in
the past few years.
They must need that money, otherwise so many top employees
wouldn’t be billing the UC for private expenses. Even UCLA
Chancellor Albert Carnesale charged $11,000 season tickets to the
Hollywood Bowl.
It is true that the budget outlook is not as grim as it appeared
earlier. According to California Legislative Analyst Elizabeth
Hill, the state is projected to have almost a $5.2 billion reserve
by the end of this year.
But that doesn’t mean the regents should continue to pay
for things students don’t need.
If the regents absolutely must increase someone’s
salaries, let them raise the wages of the full-time employees who
are getting the shaft because their income isn’t supplemented
by loans, grants or scholarships that part-time student employees
receive.
Even better, instead of increasing our fees and the salaries of
our executives, let’s try an unoriginal idea. Lower fees and
lower the exorbitant wages of the higher-ups. Less money for
executives means more for students, who, if I recall correctly, are
the main focus of this institution, not the employees at the
top.
More than just complaining or writing columns, students need to
tell the UC Regents to stop wasting our money on overpaid executive
employees. The 300-person protest on Berkeley’s campus Nov.
17 that protested the fee hike is a step in the right
direction.
If this outlandish spending isn’t curbed, there are going
to be more cutbacks to necessary programs, like financial aid, and
anything that can be drained of funds will be siphoned so that the
regents can continue to feed the bloated salaries of the UC’s
elite employees.
It’s time they stopped overspending. It’s time that
more UC students made some noises of protest.
Send sandwiches, love letters and comments to
jcrandall@media.ucla.edu. Send general comments to
viewpoint@media.ucla.edu.