Governor’s veto is met with resistance

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed a bill that, if accepted, would have imposed strict guidelines on compensation packages authorized by the CSU Board of Trustees last week.

Assembly Bill 1413 required a committee to regularly report on administration spending to legislators, and placed limits on compensation packages to high-ranked administrators.

“We’re sorely disappointed with the governor’s veto of AB 1413,” said Lillian Taiz, president of the California Faculty Association and professor of history at CSU Los Angeles in a phone interview Monday. “AB 1413 would have established some concrete guidelines for the board of trustees when it comes to spending taxpayer money… They don’t seem to be able to police themselves.”

According to a San Francisco Chronicle report, last March the president of Dominguez Hills received a $103,000 retirement settlement.

Taiz said AB 1413 would have stopped that kind of six-digit retirement settlement from happening again.

In a phone interview on Monday, CSU spokesperson Paul Browning said that new limits, adopted last November in regard to executive compensation packages, made the restrictions in AB 1413 “largely redundant and unnecessary.”

The governor agreed the restrictions would have been redundant in his veto message, saying, “Executive compensation contracts are currently approved in open meetings and last year CSU adopted changes to their transition pay program that are addressed in this bill.

“I do not believe that we should be micromanaging the hiring practices at University of California or the California State University system, in ways that may hamper their ability to hire quality instructors and administrators,” Schwarzenegger’s veto message said.

Browning said the CSU’s main objection to AB 1413 was that it would have allowed an ex-officio board member to send a representative to the trustee board meetings.

“We would like more participation by the legislators themselves,” Browning said. He added that Lt. Gov. John Garamendi has been one of the few members of the Legislature to participate in board meetings.

Governor signs transparency bill

The University of California Regents and the California State University Board of Trustees are now required to discuss executive compensation packages in open meetings and to allow public comments on the issue, thanks to Senate Bill 190. The governor signed the bill into law on Friday.

The law will go into effect next year and will have no bearing on the pay raises the trustees voted to give themselves last month.

Compensation packages are already discussed in open meetings by the board of trustees.

Adam Keigwin, spokesperson for Senator Leland Yee (D-San Francisco) who authored the bill, said if SB 190 had been in place last month, the public might have been made aware of the pending pay raises earlier, and had more time to react.

“The public uproar might have made more of a difference,” Keigwin said in a phone interview Monday. “Public comments would have been allowed at that meeting, and it would have allowed the public to have a stronger voice.”

Keigwin said current policy allows for a total of 20 minutes of public comment on all agenda items at the end of each meeting.

“That’s just not enough,” he said. SB 190 would require the trustees to allow public comments before voting on compensation packages.

CSU spokesperson Paul Browning said SB 190 would not change the way board meetings are conducted.

“We already do everything that is in the bill,” Browning said in a phone interview Monday. “We are committed to acting with the utmost transparency and accountability.”

California’s Bagley-Keene Open Meeting Act regulates all public meetings by requiring a group’s agenda be posted 10 days before a meeting, among other things.

“The governor feels it is important to have information available. He also believes in transparency, so the public and students have as much information as possible,” said deputy press secretary Gena Grebitus.

Lacey Waymire can be reached at [email protected].