Pay Hikes for UC Hospital Heads

Re “UC Hospital Administrators Get Big Raises,” Nov. 20:

Every time UC leaders shovel yet more money to their already bloated administration, they give us the same lie: That without all these six-figure salaries, administrators will rush off to higher-paying jobs.

My program, which pays far less to begin with, has lost several instructors in recent years, many to the private sector. It’s exactly what UC officials say they fear: losing people to other jobs “where their salaries could be doubled overnight.” So by UC’s own logic our pay should be raised, right? Instead, we look to be further “downsized” beyond the 25% cut we suffered just in the past year.

The only possible conclusion is that mere teaching is not something the UC president or regents value, beyond the usual lip service (another lie). What they value is administration--the more expensive, the better. With this new round of big pay hikes, UC moves still closer to becoming a system that exists only in order to be administered.

JEFF SMITH, Lecturer

UCLA Writing Programs

* I note that UC President Jack Peltason and some of the regents “implored reporters” to go easy on them because after all “campus hospitals are essentially private businesses that need top-flight administrators.”

Well, perhaps if they are private businesses they ought to admit that fact publicly and disassociate themselves completely from taxpayer-supported institutions. If they were truly private businesses, they would be paying rent on the magnificent capital facilities taxpayers have provided them and would not be taking even 4% of their operating budget from the state.

The timing of this move, when faculty and staff are taking pay cuts, student fees are being raised and even such health-related activities as the School of Nursing are being phased out, suggests that the regents and administration have adopted an attitude of “the public be damned--I’ll get mine.” Surely we are entitled to expect better than this from our university.

CHARLES E. HENDRIX

Pacific Palisades