By Phillip Carter
Daily Bruin Staff
SAN FRANCISCO — In the best financial year for the UC system
since 1990, the University of California Board of Regents voted
last week to give its top administrators a "modest" pay raise.
The raises included UC President Richard Atkinson, who received
a 4 percent increase to $253,300 a year, and 15 UCLA administrators
whose salaries rose by an average of 4.6 percent.
Among these was Chancellor Charles Young, whose pay jumped 5
percent from $212,100 to $222,700 – an increase of $10,600. Young
makes more than any chancellor except that of UC Berkeley, whose
salary is fixed at the same amount by the regents.
The pay raise comes on the heels of what Atkinson described as a
"very healthy" financial year for the UC. Under an agreement with
Gov. Pete Wilson, the UC system received more funds from California
than it had since 1990, though state money still makes up just 24
percent of the statewide UC budget.
Originally, the agreement with Wilson called for a student-fee
increase to be implemented each year to help the UC system catch up
in salaries for faculty and administrators.
But with an extra $1.2 billion flowing into state coffers this
year, Wilson reneged on that part of the bargain and offered to
give the UC system enough money to do without the fee increase.
Consequently, the raise met with little resistance from the
Board of Regents, with the exception of Student Regent Jess Bravin
of UC Berkeley, who decried the move as "unwise" given the other
pressing needs on campuses.
"It’s not prudent fiscal management for the University of
California … I don’t think that’s just the right way of going
about spending our public’s money," Bravin said, noting that the
university could fund 160 full scholarships per year with the
$680,000 combined administrative raise.
"Up and down the line this was a bad decision. It’s the second
year in a row that they have gotten a raise," Bravin added.
One other regent, Lt. Gov. Gray Davis, expressed opposition to
the pay raise for UC Davis Medical Center Director Frank Loge, who
received a $36,400 merit and equity increase in his pay, despite a
poor financial year for his hospital at UC Davis.
Nonetheless, Davis voted in favor of the salary increases.
UC senior officials will receive the same average increases as
the staff based on performance.
While not included in last week’s Board of Regents vote, UC
faculty and staff also received a pay raise ranging from 4 to 7
percent. That raise was built into the 1996-97 UC budget, and will
be automatically distributed.
Under UC Board of Regents Bylaws, pay raises for officials who
make more than $153,000 must be approved by the board. The regents
approved a similar item last September.
In voting for the item, several regents cited recent studies of
salaries at other colleges and universities, and the need to stay
even with those pay levels in order to attract and keep good
faculty and staff to UC.
As of July 1, 1996, UC officials said that chancellors’ salaries
lagged behind the salaries for comparable university or college
presidents by 9.5 percent to 22.5 percent; UC administrators’ pay
lagged behind the market by approximately 18.4 percent.