Prop. 61 Could ‘Devastate’ UC, President Says

A. R. Frank Wazzan, acting dean of UCLA’s prestigious school of engineering and applied sciences, was trying recently to recruit two professors--one for a high-level teaching and research post in engineering, the other to be an assistant professor of materials sciences.

In both cases, Wazzan’s offers were shunned. The engineer decided, at least for now, to stay in private industry. The professor of materials sciences opted for a similar position at the University of Pittsburgh.

The reason in both cases that UCLA lost out, Wazzan believes, is directly tied to the uncertainty surrounding Proposition 61, the public pay-limit initiative on the Nov. 4 ballot.

If passed, the measure, authored by anti-tax crusader Paul Gann, would limit compensation for all public employees in California to no more than $64,000 a year--considerably less than a top engineering or materials scientist could command almost anywhere else in the marketplace. Any exceptions to the limit would have to be approved by voters or, in some cases, by a two-thirds vote of the Legislature.

UCLA Could Become ‘Third-Rate’

Facing the possibility that recruits in other highly competitive fields, such as law, medicine and computer sciences, may also turn down offers and that many professors already at the university may leave for more lucrative jobs, UCLA Chancellor Charles E. Young warned recently that his campus would become a “third-rate institution in a matter of two or three years” if Proposition 61 passes.

UC President David P. Gardner said the effect on the entire nine-campus UC system would be “devastating.”

“UC would never again be what it is now,” Gardner said, if the initiative is approved and ruled applicable to the university.

The state’s nonpartisan legislative analyst’s office estimates that the Gann limit would freeze or cut the salaries of 9,000 state employees, and perhaps an equal number of public workers at the county and local level. University officials, however, contend that it would apply to as many as 7,440 employees at UC alone, including more than 5,000 of the nearly 12,000 members of the teaching faculty.

The university’s more dire prediction is based on an assumption that the $64,000 limit would apply not just to salaries, but to benefits as well--a point on which the wording of the initiative is ambiguous. If courts should find that the limit applies to salaries only, a university spokesman esti mated that 4,630 university employees would have their salaries cut or frozen.

But the effects of the measure would extend far beyond the university, said William B. Baker, UC’s vice president for budget and university relations. If UC could no longer recruit and retain the top-ranked scholars--the Nobel laureates, the acclaimed researchers in such fields as medicine and computer science--the state will lose its “competitive edge” in many fields.

“To the extent that the Gann initiative erodes the quality of higher education, the impact will be felt throughout the state for years to come,” Baker said.

Ted Kosta, an aide to Gann, said that such arguments were “absolutely not true.” Proposition 61, he said, was not intended to harm medical personnel or other faculty members in high demand in the state.

Instead, he said, it was aimed at administrators such as Gardner, whose salary is in excess of $178,000 annually, and to W. Ann Reynolds, who earns $121,255 a year as chancellor of the California State University system--to whom Kosta referred not by name but as “that woman down in Long Beach who has a pool service and a tennis service and a chauffeur-driven limousine.”

(A Cal State spokesman acknowledged that Reynolds’ university-owned residence does have a pool and a tennis court, but he said the chancellor drives herself to and from work in a 4-year-old, university-owned Buick Century.)

“No one is irreplaceable,” Kosta insisted. “There are probably a couple hundred people in the state who could do Mr. Gardner’s job. But if you’re talking about medical professors--say a doctor of neurosurgery or a heart specialist--that’s a different story. They’re as American as mother and apple pie. . . . Most legislators would probably happily make an exception (for them).”

Although UC, as a state agency, is technically not allowed by California law to lobby for or against political causes, UC administrators and faculty have been working hard at “informing” voters around the state about the potential consequences of Proposition 61.

Top UC administrators have been speaking out against the measure for months, and UC alumni have been working at the local level to persuade voters to oppose it.

An off-campus faculty association at Berkeley has sent out nearly 20,000 “Dear Colleague” letters asking professors, administrators and other staff members to consider contributing 1% of their annual salaries to the statewide “No on 61” organization, headquartered in Burlingame. Robert Griffin, executive secretary of the Berkeley Faculty Assn., estimates that the letters have drawn about $275,000 in contributions.

There is some legal question whether the amendment would be applicable to UC because of the budgetary and administrative independence granted to it by the state’s Constitution, according to Jim Holst, UC’s general counsel.

Worst-Case Scenario

In a worst-case scenario assuming that it is applicable and that the pay limit applies to all compensation and not just salaries, a UC analysis found that Proposition 61 would freeze or reduce the compensation of about 10% of all UC’s employees. But Baker said that the 10% potentially affected represent “the cream of the cream of this place.”

Virtually no discipline would go unaffected, Baker told the UC Board of Regents, which passed a resolution in June opposing the plan. The largest group to be affected would be the professional schools--medicine, engineering, business, education, law, dentistry, nursing, optometry, pharmacy, public health, architecture and veterinary medicine. Of the teaching faculty in those areas, 74% exceed the compensation cap of $64,000.

In the university’s five medical schools alone, 90% of the teaching faculty would have their salaries cut or frozen. Conceivably, the university contends, some medical facilities would have to be shut down, and services would be affected at UC hospitals, which admit nearly 90,000 patients a year and treat more than 1 million outpatients.

Cal State, California’s other major system of higher education, would also be affected by Proposition 61, but not nearly so extensively simply because it is not nearly as involved in graduate and professional training. Cal State says that 1,446 of its nearly 38,000 employees would have their salaries cut or frozen if the initiative were to apply to all compensation, and 500 if it applies only to salaries.

THE EFFECT ON UCThese University of California estimates suggest how many salaries would be frozen or cut if Proposition 61 passes. The estimates assume that the measure’s $64,000 pay limit would include benefits--a worst-case analysis. The wording of the measure is ambiguous and may go to court if the initiative passes.

Teaching % of Other Faculty Teach. Empl. Campus Affected Faculty Affected Berkeley 852 40.7% 654 Davis 654 45.9% 214 Irvine 442 44.6% 106 L.A. 1,399 45.7% 457 Riverside 123 28.8% 104 S. Diego 619 53.2% 213 S. Fran. 793 57.8% 194 S. Barb. 344 36.3% 90 S. Cruz 123 26.7% 60