A bill aimed at improving the transparency of compensation packages offered to University of California and California State University executives was approved Thursday by a unanimous vote in the state Senate.
Senate Bill 190, which was authored by Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, would require full disclosure of administrative salary packages and is more comprehensive than last year’s version of the bill, which was suspended in August.
The bill has been consistently opposed by the UC, with officials saying they have already taken measures to increase transparency.
While previous versions of the bill would have required all discussions of executive compensation to be open to the public, the newest version would specifically require voting on compensation to be open to the public.
It would also require any advisory group meeting on the subject of executive compensation to be open.
Some of the changes include that the new version covers the CSU in addition to the UC and requires the universities to provide rationales for the expenses in the compensation packet, said Adam Keigwin, a spokesperson for Yee, in a statement.
“One of the UCs offered one of the trustees in their compensation package a dog run for (the trustee’s) dog. We find that highly questionable and hard to justify,” Keigwin said, referring to a former UC Santa Cruz chancellor, whose 2005 compensation package included $30,000 for a dog enclosure at her home.
In addition, SB 190 will introduce a separate public discussion period for executive compensation.
“Most of these meetings include a 20 or 30 minute public comment period, in the beginning or the end of the meeting (for all items in debate, not only compensation). We find this completely insufficient,” Keigwin said.
The bill also attempts to close a loophole in the current open meetings law. Though meetings are open to the public, compensation issues are discussed in advisory committees, which are currently closed to the public.
“We’ve seen that (the UC Board of Regents) go around these open meetings laws. This bill will make sure that these meetings will not be behind closed doors,” Keigwin said.
UC officials, who have consistently opposed the bill, defended current practices by saying that the university has monitored itself and introduced reforms in the area of compensation actions.
In a letter mailed to Yee last year, the university stated that “debating in public … will not make the university an attractive place for talented people to come,” presumably because desirable candidates would not want to see their compensation discussed in public.
UC officials declined to comment further.
The University of California Students Association’s board voted to support the bill because students are concerned about the executive pay scandal, said Cindy Mosqueda, vice president of external affairs of the Graduate Students Association.
“With the fee increases, we see our share of the education costs going up. We see salary freezes and things that students need not being funded, so we’re in support of anything that increases transparency,” she said.
The bill will next be discussed and voted on in the state Assembly, and supporters hope to have the bill to the governor’s desk by June.
“Having students and the public hold the administrations accountable is the first step. The public will be able to have input and hopefully the (UC) Regents and (CSU) Trustees will think twice about introducing these packages,” Keigwin said.