Lockyer Lashes UC Officials Over Unsolicited Pay Increase

Calling them “grubby, self-interested individuals,” Senate President Pro Tem Bill Lockyer (D-Hayward) on Monday lashed out at University of California administrators for an account of a private meeting in which they discussed giving one UC official a raise $15,000 higher than he was willing to accept.

Lockyer told reporters that the disclosure may prompt the Senate to create a permanent oversight committee to monitor the UC and California State University systems. He said he would consider appointing as chairman one of UC’s most persistent critics--state Sen. Tom Hayden (D-Santa Monica), who once chaired a similar panel when he served in the Assembly.

The powerful Senate leader said the new panel may be necessary because UC officials have not learned their lesson from the public outcry over past decisions to give executives hefty pay raises and golden parachutes, starting with the closed-door decision to award retiring President David Pierpont Gardner a severance package of more than $800,000 in 1992.

“They (UC administrators) have been hammered for two years and they still continue to conspire in ways that are disrespectful to the taxpayers and elected policy-makers,” Lockyer said.

Lockyer’s comments came in response to an article published Sunday in the San Francisco Examiner quoting from a tape of a meeting between UC President Jack W. Peltason, the nine UC chancellors and the system’s top administrators. The March 2 meeting involved a teleconference video hookup between Peltason and his aides in the Bay Area and UC officials in Southern California.

During the meeting, Peltason criticized Lockyer and Senate Democrats on the Rules Committee for voting Feb. 28 to reject the appointment of UC Regent Lester Lee. Peltason asked UC Berkeley Chancellor Chang-Lin Tien to try to mobilize the Chinese American community on Lee’s behalf if the matter was brought to the Senate floor. Tien did not hold out much hope.

“I don’t want to see them get away with it without some kind of pain or penalty,” Peltason is quoted as saying. “On the other hand, I don’t want to make it some kind of an issue between the university and the Democrats and make Bill Lockyer so mad at us that he is hostile toward the appropriations. So I want to keep a low profile.”

The next day, the full Senate declined to consider the appointment, thus making Lee the first regent appointment to be scuttled in the university’s 125-year history. At the time, Lockyer said Lee was rejected because he was too much of a rubber stamp for Peltason.

The newspaper account said that before Peltason joined the meeting, UC officials argued over how much of a raise to give one Berkeley official who was transferring to UC San Francisco. Tien objected to the proposed salary of $150,000--representing a $34,000 raise--saying the person had already received a 7% or 8% boost in January and was willing to accept $135,000.

A UC spokesman said Monday that the person eventually received a salary of $144,500--less than was discussed at the meeting.