55 F
Davis

Davis, California

Tuesday, March 26, 2024

UC employee pay data

If you’ve ever wondered how much any UC Davis employee makes, it’s your right to know. The California Public Records Act mandates it.

To view compensation information, one must go to Shields Library and go to the reserves desk. The data is available in three bound books as well as on CD. Books for each campus are available in one library on that campus.

Although we applaud UC’s attempts to make this information public, its efforts are lacking in one area: the Internet.

By keeping this data offline, UC makes it difficult to obtain. Only one person is able to look at the data at a time, and there is only one copy of this information for campuses with thousands of students, faculty and staff.

This is only the beginning of the problem. What if someone far away from any UC campus, in say Truckee or Salinas, wanted to see where their state tax dollars were going? They would have to drive hours to view this legally-mandated public information.

Additionally, publishing this information online, when already cataloged on CD, would save UC money in printing costs, and contribute to an image of transparency.

UC has stated two concerns preventing them from distributing the information further, said Paul Schwartz, director of internal communications for the UC Office of the President. The concerns are employee privacy and other institutions knowing what UC pays its staff.

Neither of these concerns are valid. Everyone on state payrolls, including UC employees, already have their compensation information posted on a public Sacramento Bee database. Second, if other universities cared enough to know how much UC pays, it is entirely conceivable that they may send an employee to the campus to view the information. Although we appreciate Schwartz’ concerns, they simply don’t seem to hold water.

Although the information is already available online through the aforementioned Sacramento Bee database, it would behoove UC to make it available in a more official capacity. Doing so would also allow UC to create pages justifying various levels of faculty and staff pay.

UC has done a commendable job by making this information available at all ten campuses. Why not publish the information online, and make it available to all Californians?

 

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here