Highest earners mostly doctors, coaches
The Sacramento Bee reported in August that all 35 of the UC employees with the highest gross pay in 2016 were men. The Bee reviewed salary data from the system and reported that of the list of 35 men, 29 serve as doctors at UC hospitals and four serve or formerly served as coaches for men’s sports teams.
UC employees are given base pay which is directly controlled by UC administrators, although pay from other sources is counted toward their gross pay. The Bee disclosed that the state-reported salaries of the 35 men ranged from $1.1 million to $3.6 million.
One of the highest earners is employed by the UC Office of the President. Jagdeep Bachher, UCOP’s Chief Investment Officer, earned a gross pay of $1.3 million in 2016.
In response to the news, Ricardo Vazquez, UCOP’s director of media relations, said that much of the reported salary for the medical and sports professionals did not come from UC sources.
“In terms of salaries, it’s important to point out that the salaries for the physicians and sports coaches come almost entirely from non-state fund sources,” Vazquez said via email. “In the case of coaches, they are paid from Athletic Departments revenues that come from ticket sales, TV rights [and] licensing, among other sources. Similarly, UC’s top-earning doctors are world-renowned health sciences faculty whose compensation comes almost entirely from clinical fees and/or research grants.”
UC compensation data suggests that the 35 on the list are consistent with the demographic of past high earners.
“As in previous years, the top 10 earning employees at UC in 2016 (based on total pay) were health sciences faculty members, typically world-renowned specialists in their fields, and athletic coaches,” the summary of the data states.
UC data also shows that 70 percent of the top-earning employees with the highest base pay in 2016 were men. Although UC President Janet Napolitano is a woman, of the twenty-two people who earned a higher base pay than Napolitano in 2016, only four were women.
Vazquez pointed out that in relation to the California state employees, the UC system has a smaller gender pay gap and has made more progress in closing said gap. The Los Angeles Times reported earlier in the year that the California Department of Human Resources found 2014 data which stated that “there is a 20.5% disparity in pay” between women and men employed by the state which they report to be “a wider gap than in the federal civil service and the private sector in California and nationwide.”
Vazquez added that in comparison to California’s overall gender pay gap of 15.9 percent and the federal workforce gender pay gap of 11.9 percent, the UC’s gender pay gap was 5.4 percent in 2014.
The Times article also projected that California would not successfully close the gender pay gap between state employees until 2044. Vazquez said that the UC system has made more progress than the civil service system and would eliminate its gap before then.
“Over the past 25 years, the California Civil Service reduced its gender pay gap by 5.3 percentage points, representing about one-fifth of the total gap between men and women,” Vazquez said. “Over that same period, UC reduced its gender pay gap by 8.3 percentage points, representing three-fifths of the total gap between men and women. In other words, if the 25-year trend continues, UC will eliminate its gap long before the California Civil Service.”
Written by: Jayashri Padmanabhan — campus@theaggie.org
