Bowing to years of pressure to curb university executive compensation hikes, the CSU Trustees at their meeting on Wednesday adopted a last-minute change to a new pay policy for campus presidents.
The policy they adopted will limit the increase in taxpayer dollars devoted to the starting salaries of newly hired campus presidents. New presidents will get a maximum of 10% more than the pay that had been given to their respective predecessors. There is no restriction on the amount of donated dollars, referred to as “private” funds, which can be used to augment executive pay above state dollars.
CFA President Lillian Taiz said of the change, “It is good that the Trustees finally realize that unfettered pay increases for the top 1% of this public institution are not acceptable; these are, after all, still public jobs. We hope this signals an era of improved priorities that focus on the quality of our students’ education instead of presidential pay.”
Trustees clearly felt the pressure from a series of proposed laws to rein in their authority over pay for public university executives. That legislation coupled with heightened criticism statewide over those raises from newspaper editorial boards, elected officials, and many organizations including CFA finally resulted in a change in policy.
The policy was adopted just hours before it became public that Mildred García, former president of CSU Dominguez Hills, has moved into the top spot at CSU Fullerton. The Trustees also named Leroy M. Morishita permanent president of CSU East Bay. He has been interim president since April when his predecessor, Mohammad Qayoumi, moved over to San José State.
Their new salaries have not been announced yet. It is expected that the 23-campus system will hire at least five more campus presidents during 2012. The Trustees did set pay at $295,000 for two interim presidents, one at CSU Fullerton pending Garcia’s move and the other at CSU Northridge.
Information from the Chancellor’s Office on executive compensation can be found at http://www.calstate.edu/exec_comp/
See the new policy with its revision (p. 23)
See a wrap-up article on the new policy in the San Francisco Chronicle.
See a report on other aspects in the new policy, including “comparison” universities chosen by the Trustees where nearly all executives earn more than CSU presidents, in CFA Headlines last week.
