Editorial: UC overspends on spin doctor

Chico Enterprise-Record

Our view: UC Davis has decided the cure for bad publicity is to hire a better PR person. Huh?
The president of UC Davis, and perhaps the entire UC Board of Regents, should spend the fall semester taking a little refresher course in logic. They need it. It won’t patch up their latest gaffe, but maybe it will prevent future ones.

UC Davis has decided that, in the wake of a pepper-spraying incident two years ago and many other cases of well-earned bad publicity, the solution is to hire a new spin doctor for $260,000 a year.

That’s no typo — $260,000 a year for a public relations person. Oh, pardon us: an associate chancellor for strategic communications.

No matter what title you give it, it’s still a PR position. The $260,000 salary is nearly $100,000 more than what Gov. Jerry Brown earns. It’s more than what anybody at Chico State University earns, except the campus president, and it’s almost three times higher than what the public affairs person at Chico State makes.

UC Davis’ new communications director, Luanne Lawrence, was quietly hired in January. In a move that showed PR brilliance, UC Davis’ news release at the time didn’t mention her salary. It came to light over the weekend when the Sacramento Bee reported it.

The Bee said Lawrence, who started in May, is also eligible for 90 days of free housing and can participate in the university’s low-interest home loan program. (Yep, the university also does mortgages. But don’t worry. There must be some benefit to students or an educational component in there somewhere. Right?)

Lawrence made $237,000 at her previous communications job at the University of South Carolina. She must have been worth every penny. When was the last time you heard negative publicity about the University of South Carolina?

Things may be a bit tougher at UC Davis, where campus police used pepper spray on students who were protesting tuition increases, and lavish administrator compensation packages are under scrutiny as students face rising costs and fewer programs.

Hiring a new PR leader instead of addressing the issues is a bit like major league baseball saying they don’t need to crack down on performance-enhancing drugs — they just need a better-paid PR person.

But the UC system is the same agency that hired the federal government’s chief of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, when it needed a new leader last month. Napolitano will earn $570,000 a year. We’re still waiting to find out why the UC system needs a leader with a background in surveillance and terrorism rather than higher education.

Maybe one of the UC system’s quarter-million-dollar spinmeisters can fill us in.

[Source]: Chico Enterprise-Record