UC compensation to be reviewed
BY Cynthia Lee
Today staff writer
Under heavy criticism for its compensation practices and policies and the lack of public disclosure, the UC is responding aggressively with a series of initiatives aimed at “fulfilling the University’s responsibilities to openness and accountability as a public institution,” said President Robert C. Dynes. The actions include hiring an independent auditor, creating a top-level task force and building trust by publishing more detailed compensation information on Web sites.
Regent Judith Hopkinson, chair of the Special Committee on Compensation, predicted that the flurry of reports and reviews will produce a major overhaul of policies and procedures and “a far, far better and more transparent system.”
“We’re not paying lip service to this area,” Board of Regents chairman Gerald Parsky told his colleagues at a Jan. 18 meeting at UC San Diego. “This is extremely important to us as regents in fulfilling our responsibility.”
The regents have hired PricewaterhouseCoopers to do an independent audit to determine whether compensation paid out over the past 10 years to individuals who now hold or once held 32 executive positions complied with UC policies. Among the positions to be reviewed are those of the UC president, senior vice president, chancellors, laboratory directors and medical center CEOs. The process calls for all of the leaders involved to be interviewed, and payroll and personnel records to be scrutinized. Pricewaterhouse also will review travel and entertainment expense reports and determine the magnitude of reimbursements, how they were authorized and whether they followed set procedures.
The regents’ compensation task force is chaired by former California State Assembly Speaker Robert Hertzberg and UC Regent Joanne C. Kozberg. It includes seven representatives from business, government, the media and education who will review UC policies and practices involving compensation and disclosure. Among them are UCLA Professor Clifford Brunk, chair of UC’s Academic Council; James J. Duderstadt, president emeritus of the University of Michigan; and Jay T. Harris, former publisher of the San Jose Mercury News who holds the Wallis Annenberg Chair in Journalism and Communication at the Annenberg School for Communication at USC.
Meanwhile, the California State Legislature is proceeding with hearings and its own audit of UC compensation practices. “We at the regents’ level intend to cooperate fully with the legislature,” Parsky said. “Not only don’t we object to this, we welcome this.” |
