What does the Executive of the University of California do that is worth $600,000/year?

[CreekDog]

That was Mark Yudof's salary last year. Apparently he's taken a 10% pay cut this year.

No, this is not an example of egregious corporate executive salaries, but it does get me wondering what we get out of the position that $200,000 won't buy?

:shrug:

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

1. what does anyone do worth that?

really?

[dysfunctional press]

48. michael jordan sold A LOT of basketball tickets...sneakers...etc.

ask the companies that sell the products if their celebrity endorsement deals are worth the money.

[old mark]

2. He probably delegates, hangs out with really rich people, plays golf,

attends political dinners, you know -hard work.


mark

[Liberal_in_LA]

3. He's the head of an organization with 100K plus employees and many more students

That's a pretty big organization.

[Stephanie]

4. Seems to me he's cost around 100 students their opportunity for an education

I'm sure he has some really nice houses, though.

[goclark]

55. Seems he should take a cut and give it to students

I'm dreaming ~

[BR_Parkway]

23. While Obama gets $400K plus free housing - for a slightly bigger

organization

I know, the motivation to run a State or the USA is totally different - but I always laugh when folks defend the need to pay very large salaries because of the size of the organization

[CreekDog]

27. Actually, Yudof gets free housing

and a car allowance, a big one.

the UC Chancellor does not live in a dive either.

oh, and he makes 200k more than the president.

seems fair. :eyes: :wtf:

[Ikonoklast]

45. Then the President of The United States, following your logic,

is vastly underpaid.




:shrug:

[dysfunctional press]

49. definitely.

especially when compared to the private sector.

[1]

5. "this is not an example of egregious corporate executive salaries"

really?

it looks like it to me.

how do you justify this? how is this different?

[CreekDog]

7. It's not 100 million, but I didn't justify it either

I think it's too high.

:hi:

[treestar]

59. Try reading

geez, that was uncalled for. OP brought up a point and you claim OP justified a huge salary. Wrong.

[Hannah Bell]

6. per this, total compensation = $828,000 this year.

http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/article/17548

The UC compensation consists of the following elements:

- an annual base salary of $591,084 (compared to current annual cash compensation of $528,860 at the University of Texas). The UC salary falls below the midpoint salary ($606,200) set for this position by the Board of Regents and below the median salary ($644,900) of leaders of similar public and private universities used by the California Postsecondary Education Commission for comparison purposes.

- as an exception to policy, supplemental pension funding amounting to $228,000 in 2008-09 and varying somewhat each year thereafter. This funding, in combination with normal UC Retirement Plan benefits, is intended to produce a UC retirement benefit comparable to what Yudof would have expected to receive at his present employer. (The University of Texas presently provides Yudof $250,000 per year in supplemental deferred compensation in addition to his base salary and normal retirement benefits.)

-an automobile allowance of $743 per month or $8,916 per year;

- university-provided housing, as a condition of employment;

- reasonable lodging, transportation and other business-related expenses associated with university business prior to his relocation, along with reimbursement of actual costs for packing and relocation of household effects and library;

- consistent with past practice, if Yudof assumes a UC faculty position immediately after his tenure as UC president, the university will arrange for the relocation of his personal belongings, and he will be eligible for a Mortgage Origination Program loan in order to purchase a primary residence;

- use of administrative funds for official entertainment and other purposes allowed by policy; and

- standard health, pension and senior management benefits, and standard sabbatical, sick leave and vacation accrual.



As to what he does for the money, that's easy: he enforces the diktat of his ruling class paymasters.

[CreekDog]

14. Holy Crap! 600k wasn't half the story

:eyes:

[1]

15. exactly. we can rail against the heads of corporations, but this fucker is no better...

overpaid.

and each and every student trying to make tuition pays this cocksuckers salary.

[tonysam]

64. These people who run universities, colleges, and school districts,

which includes the senior administrators, also have ironclad job security which really doesn't exist in the private sector unless, of course, you own your own business.

[MattBaggins]

65. Owning your own business is Ironclad?

[pnwmom]

8. A $200K salary would put him at the level of a private high school head.

It is not even close to the median salary for University Presidents -- and living costs in CA are very high.

[petronius]

10. I think that's the kind of logic that leads to these inflated salaries -

everybody wants to be one percentage point above the median, and so the pay keeps shooting up. Meanwhile, at the other end of the scale, these same managers are trying to find the lowest wage they can get someone to work for. And it's a valid question - ignoring comparisons to other salaries, has CA actually gotten services worth $600,000?

CA is pricey, but it's not $600k a year pricey...

[pnwmom]

17. Why should basketball players make what they do? Or dermatologists?

Or a corporate head? Why should the head of one of the top research universities in the country make only $200K?

[girl gone mad]

31. Basketball players have leverage.

Very few people have the skills and physique to play at the NBA level. Even fewer have the talent and drive to earn mega bucks. The superstars like LeBron James can exercise absolute control during contract negotiation because they are fundamentally irreplaceable.

Dermatologists are usually entrepreneurs. They can earn as much or as little as they want based on services offered, hours worked, product lines created, fees charged, etc. The marketplace largely determines the income of most dermatologists. They risk their own capital for education, equipment, leased office space, staff, etc.

The head of UC is probably significantly more fungible than a professional athlete at the NBA level and should be paid a salary more in line with the market rate of his skill set, not an inflated salary determined by an out of touch board.

[pnwmom]

35. I disagree. The head of UC needs to have leadership, management, and

fundraising skills that would be rewarded outside of academia at a rate much higher than $200K a year.

[girl gone mad]

52. Isn't he making closer to $1 million?

He works in the public sector. Not many people in the public sector earn anywhere close to that.

[Hannah Bell]

37. bb players make profits for their owners. university presidents suck up students tuition,\

\

[pnwmom]

39. A major portion of a university President's job is outside fund-raising -- otherwise

tuition would be that much higher than it is.

[CreekDog]

28. but why is nobody telling me what extra benefit we get from that?

if all these jobs started paying 1/2, would we not get people who could run these systems?

the people who built the UC system made far less and look what they did?

and this guy is George Seifert after Bill Walsh.

the UC system was the envy of the world BEFORE he ever arrived.

[pnwmom]

38. The people who built the UC system made far less. So what? Postage stamps

cost a few cents back then, too, but you can't mail a letter today for that cost.

[Hannah Bell]

36. gee, i wonder how those folks working for minimum wage survive?

according to the logic of some at du, there's no way they should be able to live in california, you have to pull down at least a half-mill.

[treestar]

60. even adjusted for that it's still high

Many people live in CA for much less. The point is, how is the job worth it? What does he do? What value does he add?

[petronius]

9. We have to pay very high salaries to attract the 'best and brightest.' Because in these

tough times, only the best and brightest leadership will be able to... wait, where was I going with this?

[CreekDog]

16. I follow you perfectly, he's the best and the brighest and for 600k/year + benefits we got:

a guy that knows how to recommend layoffs, cutting classes, reducing the size of the system, decreasing the number of Californians that can attend UC and presiding over almost doubling of university tuition.

we needed a genius at 600k per year to do this?

so, if we hired someone dumber, it would have been worse? :wtf:


(ps-I get that you were being ironic) :hi:

[Dreamer Tatum]

18. What would YOU do, and how much would YOU want for your leadership?

Man, bad times sure do bring out the Armchair CEOs...

[1]

20. what would "I" do? pay this asshole a whole lot less so students, faculity and staff...

could pay less tuition, keep their jobs, and in general be more fair about the money spent.

that's what "I" would do.

leadership my ass...

[Dreamer Tatum]

24. OK, bust him down to $50K.

That's $550K spread over every student in the California system. Wow...what a windfall.

Unless the guy makes $600 MILLION, his salary is pretty much irrelevant. Unless your goal is to just be pissed, that is.

[CreekDog]

25. Why won't you answer what extra we get for 600k than we can't get at 200k?

he's making about 3 times what the governor's salary is.

what extra do we get in terms of outcomes do we get for paying that much more?

i don't deny that some people are more valuable employees than others, but among good employees, i've rarely seen 1 good employee who could do the work of 3 good employees. never ever seen it.

[Dreamer Tatum]

42. Why don't you address the actual problem?

If the UC System could LOWER fees, you wouldn't have a problem with his salary, but since there's a problem that faces every public entity in California, this guy is your scapegoat?

You can dicker over $400K that is a fiftieth of a basis point in the California deficit, or you can propose something that works for CA and the UC syatem.

Somehow it seems like if this guy worked for free, you would lose interest in the rest. Other people don't have that luxury.

[CreekDog]

44. i'm glad to address the larger issue and i just did last night

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7051518

and his salary is not the solution to the problem (i never said it was).

i also specifically said in my message that it's not egregious in the way that multi million dollar corporate salaries are.

i simply asked, you overreact to, me asking what extra do we get by paying him 600k versus 200k (what the governor makes)?

[treestar]

61. One way to test it might be for his bosses to try to advertise his job

for less and see if they can get someone to take it - in this economy, it could be that someone would be willing. They would have to have the qualifications. But there might be such a person.

[dysfunctional press]

50. isn't that really a question for the peope who set his salary...?

how many people at du- including yourself, know exactly what his actual day-to-day duties and responsibilities entail, and what qualifications are required to be considered for positon...?
and- what would someone with the same qualifications and responsibilities earn in a comparable private sector job?

[One of Many]

62. Easy to find out

Do a nationwide search for a replacement with all needed qualifications and experience and set the pay at $200k a year.


The quality of responses will tell the tale.


Or do the same x3 and hire three executives to co-run the institution for a total of $600k. I'm sure having three people with the same responsibility and authority won't cause any problems.

[pnwmom]

41. The idiots who have been blindly voting for any tax lowering referendum

for decades, without regard to the consequences, are at the bottom of this crisis; in addition to the idiots in the Bush administration who drove the US economy off a cliff.

The President of the University has had very limited options in the current economic climate.

[Ikonoklast]

46. Goldman Sachs, I think. n/t

[malaise]

11. Way more than a Wall Street banker n/t

[TreasonousBastard]

12. He runs a university with 9 campuses, a law school...

a national laboratory, 1 1/2 million alumni, 150,000 students, 100,000 teachers and staff, an endowment of around 10 billion, and trying to keep it all together and maintain their standards with a multibillion budget being cut due to California's financial problems.

What do YOU think that's worth?

[CreekDog]

13. I simply asked how much more we get out of it than we would get at say 200k

He's just a human being. I can understand being somewhat better than others.

but better than 3 others?

And since you mentioned how much he does (with help) I'll add:

He makes more than the governor

about 3 times more.

he makes more than the president.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

40. At 200K there are literally thousands of employment opportunities

Tens of thousands of executive positions in this country pay $200K or better. This guy is managing a $20 billion budget from the state legislature, which means that he has to be Lobbyist-in-Chief on behalf of the university system. And then there's the system's $9 billion endowment, which didn't get there by itself, and that means he must also be the Fundraiser-in-Chief on behalf of the system.

And then there's that pesky business about running the university system itself...

There's an article in Time (or Newsweek, I forget which) on University Presidents. Read the article about Ohio State's Gordon Gee. You get an idea about the rarified air in which these people work. It's not just any schmoe who can do this job, much less do it well.

I know that $600K seems like a ton of money (and it is). But for the job he's doing, he's probably not getting paid enough.

Edit: By way of comparison, the minimum salary for a major league baseball player in 2009 was $400,000 per year. Think about the shittiest player you saw last year, and chances are he was earning as much or more than the President of the University of California.

[TreasonousBastard]

47. For $200,000 you get a middle manager who has...

no major policy responsibilities.

(Or, you get a Governor who didn't take the job for the money.)

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

19. What does it get you?

Well for one, a competent administrator for one of the largest, if not the largest public system of higher education in the world. But hey, I'm sure you could go hire the clerk at the local 7/11 for ten bucks an hour and he'd do a swell job.

[1]

21. fuck that. i'm sure when he's smoking his cubans and swilling single malts he gives a shit...

about the taxpayers and students that are paying for his excesses.

competent administrator my ass...

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

29. You would be correct if reality was a Frank Capra movie. n/t

[CreekDog]

26. where did i ever suggest a 7-Eleven level salary?

you are the umpteenth person here to NOT answer the question of what extra benefit we get from hiring a guy at 600k + almost half that in benefits versus someone at 200k for example?

and for a guy that's as genius as this guy must be, i hardly consider massive tuition increases, and massive cuts to the system the kind of leadership that is anything but ordinary given the circumstances.

hell, for 600k, do you think he could get out there and fight for the system, for its funding, advocate for its students?

i guess not. :eyes:

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

30. Would you take a job at 1/3 of the going rate for that job?

hell, for 600k, do you think he could get out there and fight for the system, for its funding, advocate for its students?

He has, actually. It's not his fault the legislature has an insane Republican anti-tax minority who are given great power by virtue of California's fucked up tax laws.

[JCMach1]

22. Should take a 32% cut this year!

[iceman66]

32. Not a damn thing!

If his position were quietly eliminated, it would be a while before anyone even noticed he was gone.

Same with most university presidents. It's a scam.

[DU GrovelBot]

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[Orsino]

34. He looks like success.

The university is selling, in part, success.

Seems pretty egregious to me, but there is at least one practical reason for such frivolity.

[SidDithers]

43. He's the CEO of a company with thousands of employees...

and a $20 billion budget.

http://govbud.dof.ca.gov/StateAgencyBudgets/6013/6440/department.html

Working for a similarly sized for-profit company, he'd be making much, much more.

That's what University Presidents make these days.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=a3YM1TXx1qiA&refer=us

Edit: and his salary is ~ a quarter of football coach Jeff Tedford's.

Sid

[mascarax]

51. Yudof's flippant responses to NYT magazine

(I should disclose I didn't like him when he was at the Univ. of MN either. And while he no doubt thought he was being cute and clever in this 'interview', he certainly didn't represent Cal positively, IMO.)

www.nytimes.com/2009/09/27/magazine/27fob-q4-t.html

Last question:

What do you think of the idea that no administrator at a state university needs to earn more than the president of the United States, $400,000?
Will you throw in Air Force One and the White House?

[moondust]

53. He holds up a corner of the sky.

Sheesh!

:sarcasm:


(You're not supposed to notice the fact that neither he nor his understudies nor the other members of the obscene professional moneytaker class did whatever was necessary to protect the economy from the worst global economic meltdown since the Great Depression. Many of them actually helped cause it. And they didn't come cheap!)

[Taitertots]

54. There are 52 weeks in a year

Assuming he works 60 hour weeks that comes out to 3120 hours. This guy is making no less than $200 per hour.

Realistically he is only working 40 hours a week. Take off a month for vacation time and we get a more realistic 2000 hours worked in a year. $300 dollars per hour!!!

[Naturyl]

56. IMO, nobody does anything worth that much.

Nobody does anything worth more than 10 times what the lowest-paid worker gets.

[SmileyRose]

57. I could care less what the guy makes.

I do care that people are being shut out of a higher education because of the expense - and large salaries are unseemly in that particular situation.

[treestar]

58. I think that whenever I hear those figures

They could break it down into two 100K per year jobs and it would still be mysterious.

[Nikia]

63. Sometimes I think that college presidents and high level executives need a somewhat high salary

Because they are expected to present themselves in appearance and lifestyle as rich. He probably spends over $200,000 playing the part. I don't agree with this cultural practice, but it seems to be how things are.

[bridgit]

66. The UC system is vast, and it interacts with facilities and countries on a worldwide basis...

We could pull up the like-salary requirements for such positions in the Cambridge/MIT circular, or Oxford/Royal British Gallery of Tenured Anitiquated Smart Guys, the Sorbonne, Heidelberg, etc, and find out why they get paid for what they do - form a matrix, but I bet even at that rate there's little to suggest Yudof's salary hasn't been keyed on 'paper profits' able to enhance the UC systems so-called bottom line

[theHandpuppet]

67. Their football coach gets 2.8 million a year

So it's hard to begrudge a salary that actually has some connection to ... uh... education.

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/football/2009-11-09-coaches-salary-analysis_N.htm

College football coaches see salaries rise in down economy

By Steve Wieberg, Jodi Upton, A.J. Perez and Steve Berkowitz, USA TODAY

BERKELEY, Calif. — Jeff Tedford is a proven, program-building football coach who makes no apologies for the contract extension he landed before this season — and the $2.8 million in pay he's guaranteed this year — from the University of California.

He's on board, too, with more than $430 million in planned improvements to Cal's venerable Memorial Stadium. They'll make the 86-year-old bowl more earthquake-resistant, and the upgrades should catch the eyes of football recruits. "So yeah," Tedford says, speaking over the clatter of construction outside his office, "it's a big deal."

<snipping>

Higher education is in crisis, staggered by a depressed economy that has shrunk state appropriations, endowments and overall institutional budgets. The Berkeley campus has taken a near $150 million cut in state funding and is laying off faculty and staff, imposing furloughs, cutting back new enrollment and paring course offerings while hiking students' tuition.

Most sports programs, though, spend on. Starting with football coaches' salaries....

MORE, MUCH MORE

Take a look at the numbers being tossed around to sports programs and get back to me.