UC must stand for Unlimited Cash

UC Davis hired a associate chancellor for strategic communications, at an annual salary of $260,000, according to this Fresno Bee story. $260,000? That’s almost $100,000 more than the state pays Gov. Jerry Brown. It’s also a higher salary than UC Davis paid to Luanne Lawrence’s predecessors, who had different titles.

Mitchel Benson earned $182,000 in 2011 as UC Davis’ associate vice chancellor for university communications. Barry Shiller, who was interim executive director for strategic communications, earned $203,000 in 2012. Beverly Sandeen made $218,000 in 2010 as vice chancellor for university relations, a broad position that no longer exists.

It seems that UC Davis Communications czar is a high turnover post.

Want to be a 1 percenter? Work for UC
Lawrence’s high salary bothers me of course because UC Davis may need the money to pay for the next $1 million legal settlement it makes with students who do not like how they were treated when arrested for breaking the law.

Over the weekend the Chronicle ran a Center for Investigative Reporting story about UC’s decision to allow administrators with medical needs to fly business or first class.

What followed at UCLA was an acute outbreak of medical need.

Over the past several years, six of 17 academic deans at the campus routinely have submitted doctors’ notes saying they have a medical need to fly in a class other than economy, costing the university $234,000 more than it would have for coach flights, expense records show.
One of these deans, Judy Olian of the Anderson School of Management, has tackled the arduous 56-mile cycling leg of the long course relay at Monterey County’s Wildflower Triathlon at least twice, according to her expense records and race results. She described herself in a 2011 Los Angeles Times profile as a “cardio junkie.”

UC has a fundamental problem: Administrators apparently believe that they can work in academia for a state university subsidized by state taxpayers and get paid like the top 1.5 percent. (UC Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi enjoys a base salary of $400,000, which puts her in the top 1 percent.) They have no obligation to pinch pennies, no duty to be careful with Other People’s Money — and their solution to their bad reputation? Hire top-dollar image polishers. And then these arrogant academics want the public to feel badly because they are so strapped.

[Source]: SF Gate