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Health & Fitness

New UC President Disgusts With Exorbitant Housing Allowance, Bloated Salary

As some of ou might know, I worked for the San Leandro Unified School District for seven years while I attended college at CSU East Bay. As both a student and worker within the public school system, I've seen firsthand how challenging it is for educators to go about their daily business. The constant, looming threat of layoffs and program cuts has become a fixture at the K-12 and university levels, leaving students, teachers, and councilors ill at ease from year to year. Any parent, student, or educator in a classroom can tell you how precious every dollar is to maintaining services, programs, and even jobs within our schools. Knowing the budget problems facing our schools, I can't fathom how anyone in good conscious could step into a role within the public education system of California and accept over a half million dollar salary.

Doing exactly that is new UC president Janet Napolitano, who commands an annual base salary of $570,000. Along with this astonishing sum, Napolitano will also be receiving an annual auto allowance of $8916, a $142,500 lump sum for relocation fees, and lodging at a cost to taxpayers of $10,000 per month. Not only is this person somehow worth a base salary higher than that of the president of the United States, but at over half a million dollars a year is somehow incapable of paying for her own vehicle, moving expenses, or housing. There is no reason that justifies the extreme amount of money being lavished on this single administrator within our college system.

Unfortunately, Napolitano is not alone in being extravagantly pampered, as a whole smattering of other officials and administrators within the UC system receive similar compensation to the UC president. Cal Chancellor Nicholas Dirks, for example, earns a base salary of $486,800, an $8,916 car allowance, an annual relocation fee of $30,425, and free lodging in the sprawling chancellor's mansion. Apparently, there are two ways to hit the jackpot in California; win the lottery or become a UC administrator.

To be blunt, Napolitano, Dirks, and every single member of the UC system and our state government who has allowed for this abuse of taxpayer dollars to continue unfettered for years disgusts me. It hasn't even been a year since Jerry Brown dangled Measure 30 in the faces of Californians, declaring that our educational system would be in a state of virtual crisis if tax payers didn't approve his plan for emergency funding. Yet here they are, funneling bushels of cash at select individuals within the system, while simultaneously telling taxpayers that Measure 30 was a stop gap measure that won't serve to prevent further fee hikes at the university level beyond this year. It seems that Californians only ultimately served to give Napolitano gilded slippers by passing this latest sham of a tax.

Cynics like to claim that with the extent of budget issues facing the state, the hundreds of thousands of dollars in question aren't going to do much in the grand scheme of things. I completely disagree. Ask any family that's had to shell out countless lab fees for science, supplies fees for art, fees for football camp, and every single other expense thrown at their feet year after year if they'd rather see $10,000 go to pay for Napolitano's housing or go to a school. Ask any Dad's Club or Key Club fundraising committees if they'd turn down $8,916 to remodel a gym or keep a sports team from being eliminated. Ask anyone who doesn't live with their head in the clouds if more money in our schools shouldn't be the priority in a time of fiscal crisis.

I say "time" of fiscal crisis, but considering how long this state has struggled with funding education, this stream of logic should be old hat, by now. Public schools are not private industry, and as such salaries shouldn't be meted out as though these administrators were CEOs for Fortune 500 companies. There needs to be sweeping reform across the entire landscape of public education, with salaries balanced out to reflect the modest funding being supplied to our schools. Until that happens, there will continue to be spoiled cash sponges like Dirks and Napolitano siphoning money that could be better spent on your students. The next time you hear about a fee hike, cut programs, or limited class selection in our schools, think about the $10,000 a month being spent to house a single worker in our public education system.

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