Jerry Brown could set the tone – and change the attitude of apparently many at the upper echelons of state bureaucracies – if he issues an executive order on his first day as California governor to eliminate any position in the University of California system paying $245,000 a year or more.
It may be symbolic at best as he probably doesn’t have the legal authority to do so but it would send a message and focus even sharper attention on the modern-day Marie Antoinette attitude toward the pain of the masses.
A letter from 36 UC executives at the system’s headquarters and various campuses threatened to sue unless the regents dropped the $245,000 cap on how much salary is used for calculating pensions.
There are more than 200 folks in the UC system earning more than $245,000 a year.
Such a move would cost the state $51 million in retroactive retirement contributions and $5.5 million a year going forward. The cap was based on an Internal Revenue Service rule in place in 1999 when a number of UC employees hit the $245,000 “ceiling” on how much salary would be factored into retirement contributions by the UC system. The regents – according to the letter signers – in 1999 agreed to provide higher pensions if the IRS lifted the cap. The IRS approved the waiver in 2007.
The move, just in case you might be calling for solidarity with down-trodden UC executives, could add in excess of $20,000 a year or more to the typical pension of some of the system’s highest paid employees.
Naturally defenders argue that the UC system will “lose good people” if they don’t cave into the demand.
All of this comes five months after the regents cut $813 million from UC budgets to trigger pay cuts, layoffs, and other campus cutbacks while at the same time raising pay, stipends, and other compensation such a benefits for more than two dozen UC top brass.
UCSF spokesperson Barbara French at the time was quotes as saying, “It is really a story about cost savings. She went on to note that the three administrators on her campus that received hefty pay hikes had taken on new duties and therefore deserved to be compensated.
Any taxpayer – or UC worker for that matter – out there who has taken on additional duties and been compensated accordingly during the current economic downturn? Most will tell you their compensation was keeping their job.
The entire argument should run contrary to the old Jerry Brown when he was governor of California. Like Don Quixote he was the lone wolf trying to kill UC pay increases arguing they were well compensated and that part of the value of working in such a steeped and esteemed educational environment was pay in itself.
Rest assured the Zen-like philosophy is long gone from Brown’s political arsenal given the fact he was brought back down to earth by being mayor of Oakland. That said Brown should still have the instinct to understand there is something horribly wrong with the UC compensation system and at the very least see the latest pay extortion for what is – unadulterated greed.
Yes, they may have been an “agreement.” But here’s the problem. Every time someone questions paying the hierarchy at the top of the UC system more they roll out the well-worn line, “we had to do it to be competitive or else we’d lose good people.” That philosophy back in July didn’t apply to tenured and non-tenured professors who are the ones doing the actual teaching and research. Apparently they’re more expandable than the high-priced paper pushers who reside in platinum towers.
Let the “public servants” go. Better yet, remove all impediments such as some minor traces of loyalty to the people of California and make it easy for them and eliminate their positions.
That way they can be free to make their way in the world of private sector workers that they like to point to with claims non-public workers make much more than they do for their skill sets and experience.
You know, they are right. They have the skill sets and experience in shaking down folks for more personal wealth that they’d be a perfect fit among the renegade Wall Street Turks that helped bring everything from the banking to corporations to the edge of collapse just so they could line their pockets.
It’s time the UC system lived up to its motto and “let there be light” and free taxpayers and students alike from the tyranny of those whose main objective during any time – tough or otherwise – is to keep milking the state for every penny they can squeeze out.
It may be symbolic at best as he probably doesn’t have the legal authority to do so but it would send a message and focus even sharper attention on the modern-day Marie Antoinette attitude toward the pain of the masses.
A letter from 36 UC executives at the system’s headquarters and various campuses threatened to sue unless the regents dropped the $245,000 cap on how much salary is used for calculating pensions.
There are more than 200 folks in the UC system earning more than $245,000 a year.
Such a move would cost the state $51 million in retroactive retirement contributions and $5.5 million a year going forward. The cap was based on an Internal Revenue Service rule in place in 1999 when a number of UC employees hit the $245,000 “ceiling” on how much salary would be factored into retirement contributions by the UC system. The regents – according to the letter signers – in 1999 agreed to provide higher pensions if the IRS lifted the cap. The IRS approved the waiver in 2007.
The move, just in case you might be calling for solidarity with down-trodden UC executives, could add in excess of $20,000 a year or more to the typical pension of some of the system’s highest paid employees.
Naturally defenders argue that the UC system will “lose good people” if they don’t cave into the demand.
All of this comes five months after the regents cut $813 million from UC budgets to trigger pay cuts, layoffs, and other campus cutbacks while at the same time raising pay, stipends, and other compensation such a benefits for more than two dozen UC top brass.
UCSF spokesperson Barbara French at the time was quotes as saying, “It is really a story about cost savings. She went on to note that the three administrators on her campus that received hefty pay hikes had taken on new duties and therefore deserved to be compensated.
Any taxpayer – or UC worker for that matter – out there who has taken on additional duties and been compensated accordingly during the current economic downturn? Most will tell you their compensation was keeping their job.
The entire argument should run contrary to the old Jerry Brown when he was governor of California. Like Don Quixote he was the lone wolf trying to kill UC pay increases arguing they were well compensated and that part of the value of working in such a steeped and esteemed educational environment was pay in itself.
Rest assured the Zen-like philosophy is long gone from Brown’s political arsenal given the fact he was brought back down to earth by being mayor of Oakland. That said Brown should still have the instinct to understand there is something horribly wrong with the UC compensation system and at the very least see the latest pay extortion for what is – unadulterated greed.
Yes, they may have been an “agreement.” But here’s the problem. Every time someone questions paying the hierarchy at the top of the UC system more they roll out the well-worn line, “we had to do it to be competitive or else we’d lose good people.” That philosophy back in July didn’t apply to tenured and non-tenured professors who are the ones doing the actual teaching and research. Apparently they’re more expandable than the high-priced paper pushers who reside in platinum towers.
Let the “public servants” go. Better yet, remove all impediments such as some minor traces of loyalty to the people of California and make it easy for them and eliminate their positions.
That way they can be free to make their way in the world of private sector workers that they like to point to with claims non-public workers make much more than they do for their skill sets and experience.
You know, they are right. They have the skill sets and experience in shaking down folks for more personal wealth that they’d be a perfect fit among the renegade Wall Street Turks that helped bring everything from the banking to corporations to the edge of collapse just so they could line their pockets.
It’s time the UC system lived up to its motto and “let there be light” and free taxpayers and students alike from the tyranny of those whose main objective during any time – tough or otherwise – is to keep milking the state for every penny they can squeeze out.
