UC Plans to Hike Fees, Slice Pay 5%

Students would see their basic fees rise by $995 next fall while faculty and staff would take a temporary 5% pay cut in 1993-94 under an emergency budget for the nine-campus University of California system proposed Friday by UC President Jack W. Peltason.

After the hike, undergraduate fees for state residents would average $4,039, not including room and board--representing a 33% rise over this year and 150% over the past four years. The UC Board of Regents in November approved a $605 fee hike, but Peltason says $390 more is needed to cope with a continuing decline in state revenue.

The one-year 5% pay cut would be the first for the university since the Great Depression.

“A salary reduction is proposed reluctantly and only as a last resort because at this time we do not have viable alternatives,” Peltason said in a prepared statement. Pay would return to full levels in 1994-95; employees also would receive their lost pay when they retire or leave the university.

Another proposal would reduce student enrollment by about 2,000 from 165,700 through limits on transfers from other four-year schools and tougher application deadlines. The basic academic requirements for UC, however, will not change.

The announcement about the university’s shaky financial future came the same day that UC Berkeley, the original campus, celebrated the 125th anniversary of its Charter Day, on which Gov. Henry Haight signed legislation creating the school in 1868. Peltason and other dignitaries participated in ceremonies on the Berkeley campus. But the self-congratulatory mood for the birthday festivities was soured by the budget trouble. In his Berkeley speech, Peltason declared that UC is in “its most serious fiscal crisis since the 1930s--in fact its most serious fiscal crisis including the 1930s.”

Not surprisingly, student leaders predicted campus turmoil in response to fee hikes. A large demonstration is expected next Friday when the Board of Regents meets at UC Riverside, where it is expected to approve Peltason’s proposals.

“The thing that really has to get across is that a $1,000 fee increase is going to have a devastating effect on students,” said Tobin Freid, a UC Santa Cruz senior who is president of the statewide UC Student Assn. She said more students will drop out or will take longer to graduate as they work more to pay bills.

Officials promised to earmark one-third of the fee increase for financial aid, but Freid said that will be insufficient.

To limit fee hikes and pay reductions, Freid and other critics advocate cuts in what they say are unnecessary managerial layers in the sprawling UC system. Retired UC Berkeley physics professor Charles Schwartz, a longtime gadfly at regents meetings, has suggested that between $209 and $320 million in annual administrative waste can be eliminated. UC officials stress that they are taking steps to streamline operations, but deny the critics’ claims.

Defending his fee-hike plan, Peltason stressed that basic annual undergraduate costs at UC would remain about $300 below the projected average at four schools often used for comparison: University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, University of Virginia, University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, and State University of New York at Buffalo. But UC students complain that living costs are much higher here.

Peltason’s announcements came in response to Gov. Pete Wilson’s budget proposal to reduce state general revenues for UC by $138 million, or 7.3%, from the current year’s support. Tax revenues for UC could fall further by the time Wilson and the Legislature hash out a final state budget this spring or summer.

“We are worried about it,” said William B. Baker, UC vice president for budget and university relations. If state support falls more, UC may hasten plans for a third consecutive year of early retirement incentives to reduce staff.

Another high-ranking UC administrator, who asked not to be identified, said the pay reduction is partly a political measure, intended to show legislators and Wilson “that we are bleeding.”

The UC systemwide Academic Council, the faculty governing body, reluctantly endorsed the 5% pay reduction last month. Elliot Brownlee, council chairman, said Friday that he is worried any further salary cut or a failure to restore the 5% might cause talented professors to leave for other universities.

“We are very concerned about the competitive situation,” said Brownlee, a history professor at UC Santa Barbara.

UCLA Chancellor Charles E. Young, who denounced the pay cut when it was floated last month, said Friday: “I’m no less passionate. I don’t think it’s necessary and I think it would be disaster.”

Fearing that mid-career academic stars will leave UCLA, Young suggested an accelerated early retirement program and other savings to avoid the salary reduction.

The faculty group advocated that assistant professors, the younger teachers generally at the bottom of the pay scale, be spared the cut or have their funds restored through summer stipends. Peltason specified no such arrangements, but his aides said he hoped to use some research funds to help younger teachers as much as possible.

Average pay for professors ranges from about $44,000 for assistant professors to $77,000 for full professors, according to the California Postsecondary Education Commission. Professors in law, medicine and engineering often make much more, as do senior faculty in all divisions.

Even if base salaries are cut 5%, about a third of the faculty may be eligible for merit promotions that could offset the loss by 2%.

Teaching assistants and student employees would be exempt from the pay cut. It was unclear whether health care workers, such as nurses in UC hospitals, also would be exempt. Also uncertain was how UC will handle complicated negotiations over the pay cuts with its relatively small number of unionized employees.

UC wants to trim its work force of about 133,000, excluding the energy laboratories it runs for the federal government, by about 1,000, mainly through attrition. But administrators warned that the emphasis might switch to layoffs. In the past three years, about 5,000 UC jobs have been eliminated, primarily through retirement and attrition.