If you or I received a base pay increase after going seven years without one, it likely wouldn’t raise any eyebrows. But university administrators aren’t paid like you and me.
Although state funding and the price of education have been moving at inversely proportional rates, the University of California Board of Regents decided earlier in July to reward 21 members of the UC Senior Management Group, a group of senior officials and administrators that includes UCLA’s Chancellor Gene Block, with a 3 percent base salary increase.
The decision comes at a time when UC students are struggling to pay record-high tuition rates and drowning in student loans, quite likely harming the University’s image and relationship with the population it’s here to serve: students.
But it’s not just students the UC should be worried about disgruntling. Raising administrative pay could have consequences when it comes to the UC’s sway in Sacramento.
It’s no secret that Gov. Jerry Brown has often disagreed with the way the UC prioritizes its finances. In 2012, Brown criticized the regents for hiring the new UC Berkeley chancellor, Nicholas Dirks, at a salary $50,000 higher than that of his predecessor. Brown has consistently called for the UC to spend more efficiently, saying at the time that the University needs to function “at a lower cost ratio than currently is the case.”
This kind of clashing with the state has consequences when it come to the UC’s political capital. It is particularly harmful to the UC at a time when it’s continually asking for more state support.
At the same meeting this month, where they approved the base pay increases, the UC Regents also approved a $750,000 salary for the new chancellor of UC San Francisco, Sam Hawgood. His salary is a 13.8 percent jump from that of his predecessor and is easily the highest salary among UC chancellors. Asking for a 3 percent base salary increase is one thing, but a 13.8 percent increase and a $750,000 salary is unreasonable.
In all fairness, the senior-level officials who received the 3 percent bump haven’t received a pay raise in seven years. Their salaries are also significantly lower than the salaries of senior-level officials at other universities, said Dianne Klein, a spokeswoman for the UC. A recent report from the UC Office of President also estimated that the average rate of wage growth in the labor market far outpaced the growth of UC administrators’ wages.
But from an ethical standpoint, the increase doesn’t make much sense. It’s hard to justify a pay raise for those making upward of $400,000 when many students struggle to fork over $13,000 for tuition plus housing costs while working multiple jobs. And it’s even more difficult to justify that raise when it could have a negative effect on state funding for the University.
This isn’t to say that chancellors should suffer the same financial burden as some students, nor should they take drastic pay cuts to cater to Brown’s vision for the UC. But as leaders of public institutions, they should be serving the best interests of the public. They’re public servants, and their salaries should reflect that.
The roughly $300,000 in extra pay being dished out to the 21 officials receiving the raise represents a minuscule fraction for a system with a $22.5 billion budget. The money wouldn’t do much to help out about 183,000 UC undergraduates, but it would strengthen the UC’s image if administrators made sacrifices of their own – and frankly, not getting a raise when you make almost half a million dollars annually doesn’t amount to much of a sacrifice.
Anyway, while the increase may amount to an insignificant amount of the total budget, it’s also what makes headlines the next day.
Increases in administrative pay are what’s on the minds of Brown and California legislators when it comes time to budget the UC, and the University would do well to keep that fact in mind when it considers salary increases in the future.
Email Ghoogasian at aghoogasian@media.ucla.edu. Send general comments to opinion@media.ucla.edu or tweet us at @DBOpinion.