Posted on 11/28/2005 2:37:04 PM PST by NormsRevenge
BERKELEY, Calif. (AP) - Some professors at the University of California are asking for an independent investigation into how bonuses and other perks are doled out to the system's highest paid executives.
About 55 faculty from UC Berkeley and UCLA organized a petition sent Monday to Gerald Parsky, chairman of UC's governing Board of Regents, asking for a "truly independent" investigator to look into the issue.
The San Francisco Chronicle recently reported that UC spent millions in bonuses, stipends, relocation packages and other cash compensation last fiscal year despite a budget crunch that has forced five straight years of student fee hikes.
UC officials countered that executive pay still lags the market and they need to stay competitive.
However, UC President Robert C. Dynes has said that UC may be able to do a better job explaining executive pay and said he will ask a task force to see if new policies are needed.
In their petition, faculty said stronger measures are needed.
UC officials said in a statement released Monday that they "take very seriously our obligation to be publicly accountable." Officials noted the creation of the task force and said an internal review of hiring practices is being conducted by the university auditor.
Mummmmmmm, liberals whining that other liberals make more money than they do?
$380,000 for a department head. Where do I sign ?
"I didn't get as much as every one else". Whaaaaaaa. That's the argument when you have socialist teachers.
Tenured professors = socialistic response.
They are overpaid. No doubt.
This reminds me of a joke I heard recently from another professor:
A university was having trouble hiring janitorial staff, and finally found two qualified individuals willing to fill the vacancies. The only problem was that the janitors-to-be were cannibals.
They were sternly warned that if they took the jobs, they would need to give up their human-eating ways.
A few months passed, the buildings were cleaner than they had been in years, and then one day a department secretary didn't turn up for work. Suspicion finally fell on the cannibals.
"You know," one of the professors remonstrated as the cannibals were lead away by the police, "it was a condition of employment that you give up your cannibalism."
"But!" the one cannibal objected, "We'd been eating adminstrators for months, and no one seemed to notice!"
Under socialism, all professors are equal. Of course, some are more equal than others.
". . . except now the wall read "No animal shall sleep in a bed WITH SHEETS." -George Orwell, "1984."
In the eyes of the CA tax payer this UC scandal makes everyone who works for a UC campus look bad. Personally speaking from a UC support staff position, I can verify that when the media reporting on this refer to "UC Staff" that they mean faculty and above are receiving such pay and perks. Ten years or so ago the UC biggies devised a new method of pay increases for the support staff. Before then each support staff used to have 5 steps from bottom to top and if their annual evals were positive a staff person would move up one step. Under the new method the support staff step increases are so incramentalized that a person may NEVER get past mid range of their pay scale, even after serving 30 years in the same position. Their reasoning behind this is to give the support staff more to work toward. (BS) Check the stats, this has resulted in many support staff leaving the UC system, hence the UC boasting that it now operates on 4% to 5% less support staff than 10 years prior. The truth is, it isn't cheap to train someone and considering the current turnover of support staff, the net affect is costing even more and things are falling through the cracks. The news of the kinds and amounts of perks being given to select faculty and higher admin positions only serves to increase the discruntledness of the employees on the support level, let alone closing the door on many potential students.
Yup, but not only that. The UC Administration has brought this on with a couple of high-profile actions. One was the hiring of a new administrator--I think it was a chancellor at Santa Cruz. She wouldn't come unless they found a position for her lover. So they created an new position that previously did not exist for her girlfriend to the tune of something like 190K/year on top of the almost 400K chancellor salary. Plus huge moving allowances. All at a time when tuition was being hiked and other belt-tightening imposed.
My observation with these accountability studies is that you can usually know whether one will be worthwhile as soon as you find out who is on the committee. If the university is determined to turn out a whitewash, it knows who to pick.
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