Some people just don't get it

The University of California system raised tuition by 32% for this academic year. It will increase by another 8% in fall 2011. Faculty and staff have been forced to take unpaid furloughs as UC grapples with a massive deficit. In addition to the shortfall on current expenses, the system faces $21.6 billion in unfunded pension liabilities. Neither UC nor its employees have paid into the pension fund since 1990.¹ To eliminate that gap, "UC is trying to ... reduc[e] benefits for future employees, rais[e] the retirement age, requir[e] employees to pay more into UC's pension fund and boost tuition" (source).

Pretty awful, isn't it? Yet there are at least 36 highly paid administrators at UC² who are demanding more pension benefits than they are getting now.

In fairness, the executives may have a legal right to the additional benefits. The executives want their pensions calculated on their entire salary, not just the first $245,000. The UC Regents agreed to this calculation in 1999, and the IRS granted UC a waiver to pay the additional pensions in 2007.

But having a legal right to something doesn't make asking for it a reasonable thing to do. UC may have no choice but to honor the demands, but honorable executives wouldn't have made the demands.

Related articles

• Highest-paid UC execs demand millions in benefits (sfgate.com)
• California Pension Crisis Watch: University of California Edition, or, Paying Nothing Into a Pension Plan Can Make It Harder to Get Anything Out (reason.com)
• UC proposes tuition hike, reduced pension benefits (sfgate.com)