OUR VIEW: CSU's plan for exec pay limits makes sense
It appears California State University trustees are finally getting a grip on the state's economic reality. In a meeting Wednesday, the CSU board of trustees voted to cap the salary for newly hired presidents at no more than 10 percent of what the outgoing president earned, with a generous ceiling of $325,000.
That means no more $400,000 salaries like the one trustees approved for the incoming San Diego State president -- which was $100,000 more than the outgoing president's pay and was approved the same day trustees hiked student tuition by 12 percent.
Outrage from students, legislators and the public has been bubbling over ever since. Trustees initially responded with a revised pay plan based on pay at comparable universities around the county. However, a Legislative Analyst's Office review found the list contained universities that had medical schools, law schools and large research programs, which CSU schools do not have. The plan approved Wednesday is a marked improvement over the first plan.
We get that having the best university system requires recruiting the best people to lead those institutions. Nor do we doubt, as some CSU university presidents testified to the trustees, that salaries of $400,000-plus are the norm for their jobs at other universities.
Hopefully California will one day be in a position again to offer these salaries and compete for the very best candidates to lead our CSU institutions. But right now, we're not.
For now, the best approach is to find the best person for the job who can live with the salaries California can afford to pay. In an era of rising tuitions and sagging state support, anything else is unconscionable.
