Comments on: Persistent Dishonesty from UCOP

By: Pentagron

Pentagron — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 03:35:43 +0000

I am the chair of a clinical department at one of the UC medical schools. The marketplace for physicians is competitive. We already pay our physicians substantially less than competitor institutions including health plans like Kaiser Permanente, group practices, and local hospitals. It is very difficult for us to recruit physicians — our residents almost never want to stay on our faculty because they can immediately command salaries that are 40% higher working in the private sector. I assume that the faculty physicians who choose to continue to work for us do so because they enjoy the stimulation of being with bright colleagues and the rewards of training the next generation of physicians. However, they can easily pick up and go tomorrow. If I cut the salaries of my faculty to pay for the salaries of faculty members in the anthropology department, they will do just that. President Yudof is correct. It is not possible to loot the medical centers to pay the university shortfall. We already work on razor thin margins because we operate inefficiently (there are costs to training medical students and residents), we take care of terribly sick patients, and we provide a disproportionate amount of charity care. Attempting to solve the budget shortfall by taxing the medical centers would most certainly kill the golden goose.

By: John

John — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 09:18:08 +0000

Aldo Antonelli,

Is undergraduate education just as worthy an endeavor as paying clinical faculty for their care of indigent patients or just as worthy as the care of indigent patients? As a UC undergraduate, I would not want the care of indigent patients to be reduced in order to avoid an increase in student fees. I also would not want workers not being paid in order to avoid an increase in fees. Granted, after the clinical faculty are paid for their work, any excess can be siphoned off to other purposes. However, I suspect that it wouldn’t amount to much.

That being said, UCOP’s lack of transparency is terribly frustrating. On the Berkeley campus it’s breeding wholesale confusion and quite a bit of (justified) fear among undergraduates and grad students alike.

By: looking post » Blog Archive » Life is hard when you make $828,000 a year

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 17:46:12 +0000

[...] Charles Schwartz comes along and claims that the previously released Myths & Facts document is misleading– and brings Yudof’s credibility into serious question. People who were already mad get [...]

By: Anon1

Anon1 — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 03:57:54 +0000

Also, regarding the UC endowment, to Taylor’s credit, he does note that “At the President’s request, staff is looking into whether there is flexibility to change or reallocate these monies into programs that reflect the changing priorities of the university.”

Such a reexamination is necessary and welcome, but is also rather late in the game. This should have been done earlier, but regardless now it should still be done and done in an open and fully explained and justified manner in consultation with the public.

By: Anon1

Anon1 — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 03:53:13 +0000

One key point that I think this discussion illustrates is that the budget details ought to have been discussed, presented and debated (by UCOP, the Regents, the Academic Senate, and others) more openly, clearly and thoroughly than they were.

I’m also concerned by Taylor’s (‘myth&facts’) assertion that hospitals’ holdings should be guided by Moody’s to $3bn. I’d like to know whether this is an appropriate guide or not (and why), and what the implications of dipping below $400mn would be. Taylor leaves such questions unaddressed, and I think that sort of ambiguity illustrates some of the defensiveness and reluctance of UCOP to clearly and fully explain/justify their approach.

I find Warren Gold’s point above regarding UCSF recommendations very important because it contradicts the assertion made by some that cutting top salaries & bonuses further would jeopardize top faculty who bring in significant grants and students. If the faculty are suggesting their salaries be cut, one has less of a basis to argue that cutting the salaries would cause them to leave! (though presumably there may have been dissenters to the Faculty Association proposal who would be inclined to leave were salaries reduced). However, there is again more ambiguity on UCOP’s part since there is not hard, systematic evidence any debilitating faculty exodus would occur, particularly since other major competing universities have experienced financial drops also.

By: Derrick

Derrick — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 23:23:57 +0000

Michael–

Agreed it’s not an uncomplicated issue. However, I’d add that state capital appropriations more than make up for MC transfers to the SOM. Take UCI for example, which netted $47.1 MM in excess income, then transferred $35.3 MM of that to the SOM in 2008. It would seem this leaves the medical center with significantly less net income to use for the usual purposes… like capital development. Except, unlike your average California hospital, UCI received over $77 MM in state appropriations for capital dev’t.

Moving money around is a shell game which UC administration, for all its shortcomings, happens to great at. If only they moved it around to fairly compensate all of the individuals that build the University.

By: Aldo Antonelli

Aldo Antonelli — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 18:06:55 +0000

Of course, the fact that UC MC’s profits contribute to a worthy cause (pay clinical faculty for their care of indigent patients) does NOT imply that *some* of those profits could not be diverted to the main campus. After all, undergraduate education is just as worthy an endeavor.

By: Michael Demetriou

Michael Demetriou — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 04:07:45 +0000

Your analysis is flawed. UCI Medical Center (for which I have knowledge of) does indeed on paper have an annual profit that appears as un-restricted funds on a spreadsheet. However, these so-called “profits” are made on the backs of the rank and file clinical faculty (there are some salaries in the SOM that are way out of line but these do not represent the vast majority of clinical faculty). UCI SOM faculty routinely take care of patients for free (patients without insurance), while the hospital is paid for taking care of these patients by the federal government (so called disproportionate share funds). This results in a chronic multi-million dollar deficit in the UCI SOM, where the faculty salaries are paid. To cover this imaginary ‘deficit’, the Medical Center transfers “profit” to the SOM to correct the deficit. Thus, for UCI, these funds are indeed “committed” and cannot be raided to support undergraduate education. I suspect that this is also true at the other schools. As you can see, the issue is far more complex than it appears on a spreadsheet.

Michael Demetriou MD PhD FRCP(C)
Associate Professor
Departments of Neurology, Microbiology and Molecular Genetics
Institute for Immunology
University of California, Irvine

By: UC Students Walkout « UC Undergraduate Coalition

UC Students Walkout « UC Undergraduate Coalition — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 00:02:00 +0000

[...] 1. Read these articles: Execs Still Get Raises as UC Cuts Staffing, Pay (August 2009) Follow the Student Fee Money (September 2009) Persistent Dishonesty from the UC Office of the President (September 2009) [...]

By: Warren Gold

Warren Gold — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 01:45:19 +0000

Charlie
I hope you can unravel the details of the “committed” funds, especially the FFEs.
You will remember that the UCSF Faculty Association proposed a 15% cut in executive salary for those making over $200,000 coupled with a cut in physician bonus payment to make up the needed $200 million. Not even mentioned by Yudoff or the then-chair of academic senate, Mary Croughan for that matter.
The current estimate is that a large % of medical school faculty will be exempt from the pay cut/furloughs.
UCPB is still trying to get the data on increase in administrative FTE to corroborate your earlier study.
Keep up the good work.
Warren