Next week the CSU Board of Trustees will likely vote to increase the pay of the President of the Northridge Campus. Dianne Harrison arrives at CSUN from the CSU Monterrey Bay campus where, as president there, she was making a paltry $270,000. Her new salary will be $324,500. Also included in her pay package is a house, moving expenses, and $12,000 per year to pay for a car.

According to CSU officials her $54,000 pay raise and housing expenses will be paid for by the CSUN Foundation; it will not come from the general operating funds of the university.

Harrison’s 20% pay raise is her reward for jumping on the magical money merry-go-round. Unable to offer her a “suitable” raise at CSU Monterrey? Simply move her to Northridge and deliver her “bump.”

I suspect that the magical money merry-go-round will get a good workout as the CSU system does whatever it can to make sure that its presidents continue to get pay raises (at the same time, by the way, that they refuse to grant faculty a 1% pay raise!).

What is most disturbing about this is the trend toward toward turning to the university foundation to fund this pay raise. University Foundations raise money from individual donors.

It is those donors’ money that will be used to pay for this pornographic pay increase. And I am sure they they were not told when they made their contribution that the sum they were donating could be used to pay the salary of the university president. Unless they specifically earmarked that donation for some specific purpose it can be used to help an already-overcompensated university president.

This strategy of exploiting foundation funds to deliver pay raises to CSU presidents is being employed at several campuses in the CSU system; and I am sure that the strategy will spread.

I just made a small contribution to my alma mater a few weeks ago. Knowing what I know, I was sure to designate it for a specific program within the College of Arts and Sciences.

It is time for the California State Legislature to act.

Individuals making contributions to CSU foundations should be informed that their contribution could be used to compensate the university’s president. Donors should be required to affirmatively agree that their funds can be used for that purpose.

If I thought my contribution was used to compensate a college president I would be furious. So, I would wager, would most of us. Most people who make contributions probably think the money will help students to pay their tuition, buy new books for the library, or provide for technology upgrades.

Given without restrictions that money can be used for anything: Including fattening a presidential paycheck.

I do not want my hard-earned money to pad the paycheck of an already well-compensated president. I need it more than they do; I would rather keep my money. I suspect you would keep your money too. And that is why the CSU Administration would fight this legislation with tooth and nail.