UC Chief’s Severance Plan OKd in Private : Regents: Lawmaker, board member urge panel to reconsider $2.4-million retirement package for Gardner.

The University of California’s governing board secretly approved a $2.4-million retirement plan for UC President David Gardner, state legislators said Thursday.

State Sen. Quentin L. Kopp (I-San Francisco) joined regent Jeremiah Hallisey in calling for the Board of Regents to reconsider their decision today at a meeting in San Francisco.

The retirement amount “should be shocking to every resident of California in these excruciatingly difficult economic times,” Kopp said.

Assemblyman Tom Hayden (D-Santa Monica), chairman of the Assembly Higher Education Committee, said he plans to propose legislation ordering regents to decrease the amount.

“This secretive severance package appears to be an unfair giveaway at a time when UC students are facing 24% fee increases on top of 230% increases in the past decade,” Hayden said.

Controversy centered on a retirement severance package that critics said is worth $1.4 million, which will come in addition to regular retirement payments expected to total $1 million.

University spokesman Rick Malaspina said the severance totals $737,000. He said it was accrued through benefit plans, stemming largely from endowment funds intended to recruit and retain top management talent and not from public funds. Gardner’s annual salary of $243,500 is only 40% paid by the state, he added.

Gardner announced his resignation as UC president in November and is expected to step down Oct. 1. Gardner said his wife’s death last year made it impossible for him to continue in the position.

The Board of Regents is expected to vote today on the nomination of UC Irvine Chancellor Jack W. Peltason as Gardner’s successor.

Kopp held a Capitol news conference to call on regents to reverse their decision to give Gardner the retirement severance. Kopp said he learned of the arrangement from Hallisey, who complained about the decision and asked that it be reversed in letters to Gov. Pete Wilson and other regents.

“When we are asking students to pay more and faculty and staff to take less, it is nothing short of outrageous,” Hallisey said.

Kopp also criticized regents for considering the matter in private.

“I am appalled at the secrecy in which proceedings leading to the adoption of a $1.4-million severance compensation to the retiring university president occurred,” Kopp said.

Kopp, who has authored a proposed overhaul of government open-meeting laws, said a regents subcommittee approved the severance March 19 in closed session and the full board approved it the next day in an unrecognizable agenda item. The meetings were in Los Angeles.

Kopp said documents indicated that university officials intended to keep details of the severance package private until Gardner’s retirement in October.

Malaspina said the proceedings on the severance were legally private because they involved a personnel matter.