Data released by John Chiang shows hundreds of CA employees making 6
figure salaries in 2010.
<http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/07/05/MNON1K6KG1.\\
Although many grotesque salaries populate the list, there is one which
really gets me on a personal note. Robert A. Corrigan, president of
SFSU (don't let the title fool you, the position is not elected), made
$350,000 last year, over 100k more than Gov. Jerry Brown or Mayor Edwin
Lee. The only justification I've heard for this compensation is that the
CSU needs to be competitive with the private sector, but I think that
argument falls apart under the most casual scrutiny. Corrigan's
qualifications include a PhD in American Civilization (whatever that
means) and a career as an educational bureaucrat, so I don't think it's
reasonable to worry that if he left tomorrow, fortune 500 companies
would start pounding down his door.
Understandably, there has been a lot of lobbying in Sacramento for
additional funding for my alma mater, but I think many of these efforts
are misled, given the University's misappropriation of existing
resources, Corrigan's salary being the worst example, but not the only
one. As someone who has the school's best interests at heart, I believe
that SFSU has no mandate to ask taxpayers for an additional dime until
it has thoroughly reviewed its own budget, and cut out this kind of fat.