The University of California Board of Regents did not have a good week demonstrating it is attuned to concerns over transparency and taxpayer accountability.It's politicians and their liberal followers who bemoan the pay differential between CEO's and the worker bees, but I don't hear any of them pitching a fit about this particular government job. If our government won't set the example, why should anyone be inclined to follow? Answer: because liberals believe in government by coercion, it's how they operate.
Just six days after announcing her nomination, the regents hired Janet Napolitano, the U.S. secretary of Homeland Security, to be the next UC president. Just minutes before approving her and with no opportunity for the public and university community to weigh in, the regents announced her base annual salary – $570,000 – a vast sum more than the $199,700 she earned yearly protecting the United States from terrorist attacks and natural disasters.
While $570,000 is slightly less than what outgoing UC President Mark Yudof has earned, it perpetuates the administrative salary bloat that UC faculty, taxpayer groups and this editorial page have criticized for years. UC was once an institution of relatively even salaries between faculty and administrators, partly because the latter were nearly always drawn from the faculty, with plans to return to teaching after finishing their administrative terms.
That has all changed, with UC administrators being treated like corporate CEOs and receiving salaries and benefits out of sync with every other form of public service. That bloat undermines their ability to work with faculty and lower-paid staff, and it undermines their credibility when they go to the Legislature to seek increased financial support for UC and its mission.
Friday, August 02, 2013
Do As I Say, Not As I Do
From the major Sacramento newspaper's editorial board:
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5 comments:
I'll pitch a fit ... I don't bemoan the salary, but ... she has no experience in education, and arguably none in management. Why not hire a Dean?
Wow. The image that comes to mind is the Trunchbull.
maxutils: "she has no experience in education, and arguably none in management"
Wiki says that she was attorney general of Arizona (so she was in charge of the other state attorneys, I think), governor of Arizona, and secretary of homeland security (which as a budget in the 10s of billions of dollars and 200K employees).
All three of these jobs seem like management. And the UC system has fewer employees than DHS as well as a smaller budget.
She doesn't seem to have any corporate experience ...
-Mark Roulo
The reason I said 'arguably' was because, in my mind ... government management ...isn't. And given that UC tuition costs have been skyrocketing exponentially (and where my kids will likely be going), I would hope that the position would be given to someone who had taught, or had managed something where education was relevant, or where cost minimization mattered ... I just don't understand this appointment. She's the best candidate for the job? Really?
I suspect Ms. Napolitano will do as lousy a job running a college as she's done running a federal agency.
She'll be limited to squandering millions of tax payer dollars rather then the billions she's grown used to but that should make her feel right at home among the California political elite.
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