UC raises: Regents boost pay of 8 chancellors by 3%
The University of California Board of Regents has approved 3 percent raises for eight of its 10 chancellors.
UCSF Chancellor Samuel Hawgood was the highest-paid campus leader to receive a raise. His salary will increase from $795,675 to $819,545 a year.
The other chancellors are:
UC Irvine’s Howard Gillman, $499,550 to $514,537.
UCLA’s Gene Block, $454,574 to $468,211.
UC San Diego’s Pradeep Khosla, $449,208 to $462,684.
UC Santa Barbara’s Henry Yang, $401,020 to $413,051.
UC Merced’s Dorothy Leland, UC Riverside’s Kim Wilcox and UC Santa Cruz’s George Blumenthal, $394,655 to $406,495.
Chancellors from UC Berkeley and UC Davis joined the university in July and August, respectively, so they weren’t included in the merit-based salary increase.
The increases passed Wednesday with a 10-6 vote.
The regents based their decision on comparisons to other chancellors in the Association of American Universities, which represents UC and 34 other public universities in the U.S.
According to the regents’ executive summary, eight UC chancellors are at or below the 10th percentile compared to their counterparts in the organization.
“UC chancellors remain in the bottom fourth of compensation as compared to their peers, despite the demanding and highly complex work they do,” said Dianne Klein, press secretary for UC’s president.
She said regents met Thursday morning and discussed how to develop a long-term plan to align chancellor salaries with what is seen in the marketplace.
But representatives from the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, a union for public service workers, said the raises were excessive and alarming.
“The regents’ actions are troubling,” AFSCME President Kathryn Lybarger said. “UC has become a living monument to income inequality.”
AFSCME represents thousands of workers at UC, including food service, sanitation and hospital employees. Lybarger said UC is taking advantage of these workers, who haven’t seen anywhere near the salary growth as the management level.
According to an analysis by AFSCME, the gross pay for all UC chancellors combined has increased by 33 percent in the past six years. And in 2016, there were 80 people at UC who were paid more than $400,000 — more than President Trump receives.
“We shouldn’t be running a public university system in California on the backs of the lowest paid workers,” Lybarger said. “It’s outrageous and it’s not how you run a university.”
In 2014, UC approved 20 percent raises for its three lowest paid chancellors — UC Merced, UC Santa Cruz and UC Santa Barbara. The decision came one day after finance executives told the regents that academic quality was in jeopardy due to budget shortfalls.
Chancellors also received raises last year, Klein said.