Chancellor Responds to UC Compensation Coverage

Chancellor Mike Bishop today (Nov. 14) released an email message to the campus community in response to recent coverage about UC compensation. His entire message, titled "Response to the SF Chronicle," follows here. Dear Colleagues: The San Francisco Chronicle has been running a series of articles about compensation and other monetary matters at the University of California (UC). I recognize and respect the sort of concerns that the articles may raise for many of you. So I offer here some commentary to put matters into perspective. I have written at some length, because I believe it is important that these matters be fully understood. A. General Principle. Nothing described about UCSF in the Chronicle articles represents a violation of law, university policy, codes of conduct, or standards of practice throughout the national academic community. Rather, the articles are a somewhat imbalanced representation of how business is done within all major research universities in the United States, public and private. B. Salaries. The articles raise the ever-present issue of compensation at the UC. The leadership of the university is charged with maintaining the quality of instruction, research, health care and public service at the highest possible level - the Regents are ardent about this, and the public deserves no less. We cannot do this without offering compensation that is competitive in the academic marketplace. Although the articles portray many salaries at UC as excessive, the reality is that our salary scales lag the market by an average of 15% across the board (the gap is much larger in some critical areas), a circumstance that has been of great concern to the UC and is compounded for UCSF by the exceptionally high cost of real estate and living in the Bay Area. We are constantly at risk of losing (and often do lose) faculty, clinical practitioners, managers and other talented employees to the more affluent of our academic peer institutions and to the private sector. The public naturally wonders why some salaries at the UC are relatively high, whereas others are not. The blunt fact is that it generally requires higher compensation to recruit and retain a neurosurgeon than an internist, an anesthesiologist than a molecular biologist, a vice chancellor than an accountant. A variety of considerations engender these differentials, including training, skills, scope and type of responsibility, demand, and capacity to earn revenue that will benefit our medical center or departments. The market place is a harsh reality, but it is a reality with which we must cope in order to fulfill our charge of excellence or even, in the case of our medical center, to survive. The articles attempt to link increases in student fees to the support of the higher salaries at the UC. This is inexact, at best, and reflects the fact that the funding of the UC is not widely understood. At UCSF, for example, only 9% of our 2.5 billion dollar budget is provided by the state and only 12% of all salary monies. The remainder derives from other sources, such as clinical practices, research grants and contracts, and private philanthropy. These blended non-state resources are what make possible most of the higher salaries at UCSF, not the use of student fees and state funds. Regrettably, these resources cannot be used to rectify the inequities found among our lower salary scales. Those inequities can only be addressed with an increase in state funding, such as occurred this year. The articles draw attention to stipends. At UCSF, we use stipends for extra duties very sparingly -- there are presently none in effect among the senior executives of the campus. C. Outside Income. Some of you may be chagrined that faculty and academic administrators devote portions of their time and energy to compensated activities outside the university. But such activities are common practice in academia. The UC encourages outreach to the private sector, because it can facilitate the transfer of knowledge and cultivate productive collaborations. In some instances, service in the private sector can lead to appreciable supplemental income, generally as a function of the particular expertise and stature of the individual. The Chronicle reports that "senior employees" can perform compensated outside work during the regular workweek without taking vacation. That has not been my practice. I take vacation leave for such work -- generally between five and ten days a year. Remuneration aside, I find these activities to be highly informative and useful to me as chancellor. The Chronicle reported that I have "more than a dozen sources of outside income." In reality, most of these "sources" are one-time lectures about my cancer research at academic institutions or symposia (I still direct a research laboratory), or about cancer to the general public. These are natural outcomes of my continuing life as a scientist and educator, not "moonlighting," as the Chronicle suggested. Some of these lectures are compensated, others are not. I have only three recurrent compensated activities: two for biotech companies and one for a nonprofit research institute. I use a total of about five vacation days per year to fulfill these latter obligations. I do all of this with the full authorization of the university and report it diligently. D. Recruitment Inducements. The university attempts to compensate for deficient salaries by offering other assistance in recruitment. Prominent among these are relocation allowances and low interest loans (the latter used principally for faculty), designed to reduce any deterrent posed by the cost of real estate; and housing allowances to accommodate new recruits while they search for or renovate permanent residences. All of these are standard practices throughout the academic community and in the private sector. They are employed to varying degrees, determined by the importance of the recruitment and the cost differential confronting the recruit. If you doubt the importance of the cost differential, speak with any of our faculty who has moved here from the Midwest. The Chronicle referred to Dean David Kessler as one example of these recruitment inducements. Everything they described was within university policy, approved by standard university procedures, and comparable to what would be available elsewhere. Dean Kessler's annual compensation is on a par with his counterparts at UCLA and UCSD. E. Official Residences. The Chronicle articles raised questions about the university-owned residences for the President and Chancellors. Most major universities and liberal arts colleges in the United States provide such residences. The cost of maintaining these facilities is not trivial, but the use of the facilities in various ways returns a large measure of good will and assistance to the university. At UCSF, every effort is made to hold costs to a minimum. We employ no staff for cleaning, gardening or cooking (other than the caterers retained when we entertain large groups), and we perform only the most essential maintenance and repairs. The President and Chancellors of UC are required to live in the residences, in order to permit proximity to campus, to assure maintenance, and to oversee the entertainment of members of the campus community, civic leaders, philanthropists and others who might be important to the welfare of the university. It is likely that hospitality at the chancellor's residence had something to do with the success of the just-concluded Campaign for UCSF, which raised nearly 1.7 billion dollars. My wife and I entertained at a fairly brisk rate early in my tenure as chancellor, but cut back as the university budget deteriorated - balancing cost against effectiveness is always a concern. But we continue to host community guests, faculty, staff and administrative meetings, at a greater pace than reported by the Chronicle - there have been three such events within recent weeks, and four more are forthcoming before the holidays. (Ironically, one recent event was a dinner that included members of the press.) The facility cannot accommodate large receptions without our incurring major expense. F. Entertaining Off Campus. The articles also drew attention to reimbursements for entertaining at restaurants. For myself, I can say that these expenses are incurred strictly in the line of duty. Meals at restaurants are commonly used at all major universities for the recruitment of faculty and executives, and for the cultivation of philanthropists. The seven and one-half year record of my chancellorship shows relatively few reimbursements for restaurant costs (anywhere from two to a dozen annually, but never more), virtually all of which have been moderate. The Chronicle chose to focus on one that was not moderate, representing one of the few times that I have failed to check menu prices in advance for an unfamiliar restaurant. I belong to a private dining club in the financial district known as the Villa Taverna. This is explicitly permissible by university policy. The membership provides a downtown venue for meetings with donors, civic leaders, and others important to UCSF, and is used strictly for business purposes. The Villa Taverna is a non-discriminatory facility that I use for luncheons whenever possible, because it is convenient for my guests and generally less costly than restaurants. G. Conclusion. The leadership of the UC is committed to maintaining both the excellence and accessibility of this great institution. There are times when these two goals come into conflict. We attempt to manage this conflict with realism, integrity, and good judgment. We expect to be held accountable by the public. But we also hope for their sympathetic support as the UC strives to pursue its diverse missions under the highest possible standards. Sincerely, J. Michael Bishop, M.D.
Chancellor




SF Chronicle stories: UC piling extra cash on top of pay Other perks include parties, gifts, travel Services cut for students as high-pay jobs boom Free mansions for people of means UC refuses to release executive raise list Database of highest paid UC employees