Fire CSU Chancellor Reed

We the undersigned demand you fire Chancellor Charles Reed immediately and place a cap on all execute salary and benefits preventing the salaries and benefits of CSU executives from exceeding those of the governor of California.  We further demand that all future fee increases for students and pay or benefit cuts for faculty be linked the CSU trustees first enacting cuts in executive pay and benefits.  Executive pay and benefit cuts for CSU executives should be no lower in percentage than the percentage of any proposed fee increase or faculty pay/benefit cut.

Chancellor Reed's tenure has been marked by an obscene degradation of the CSU system.  Reed has three passionate pursuits that define his management style; raising student fees, undermining real pay and benefits for faculty and support personal, and raising pay and benefits for his hand-picked administrators.

Reed has overseen astronomical fee increases for students totaling 263%.  Reed has instituted multiple fee increases each year resulting in fee increases of 36% since 2009-2010 alone.  For the 2011-2012 year Reed enacted a 10% pay increase followed by a 12% increase of the already increased fee figure.  The resulting $1446 single year fee increase represents an astounding 26.2%!  Worse still, these fee increases have bought students less.  Reed has matched fee increases with increases in class sizes, increases in the ratio of students to faculty, fewer course offerings, decreased operating hours, higher parking fees, and a general backlog of maintenance of faculties.  Indeed, Reed’s efforts have resulted in increasing enrollment in the CSU 18% while maintaining 0% growth in tenure-line faculty numbers to teach the increased number of students.
 
Reed’s second passion--forcing decreased or stagnant pay for faculty and support personnel--is just as shocking.  Reed has relentlessly demanded give-backs in real wages and benefits with every contract negotiation.  General faculty pay has fallen 16% adjusted for inflation.  Likewise, faculty have seen increased workloads resulting from lower numbers of faculty teaching ever higher numbers of students.

Reed's fervor for punishing workers and raising student fees while degrading educational quality is rivaled only by his egregious lust for increases in administrative positions and administrative compensation.  While Reed matched an increase in student enrollment of 18% with a 0% increase tenure-line faculty, he has increased the number of non-instructional managerial and administrative positions 22%.  Reed has likewise relentlessly pushed through pay increases for administrators like himself and campus presidents.  Reed's own official salary has increased 66% and now hovers just below half a million dollars a year--roughly twice the governor of California's pay rate.  He receives an additional $30,000 in yearly retirement compensation from the largely non-transparent, unregulated CSU foundation.  Reed likewise enjoys a Cadillac benefits package including housing and transportation subsidies. The housing (provided) and travel subsidies ($12,000) alone exceed the average yearly pay of tenured full professors in the CSU.   Reed has pushed through pay increases of 71% for administrative positions like campus presidents.  These individuals also enjoy additional compensation in the form of benefit packages.   The housing and travel packages for campus presidents excluding other payments and benefits averages around $72,000.  

Any response by the governor’s office short of firing Reed and instituting execute pay and wage reforms represents an endorsement by the governor of Reed’s destructive and selfish mismanagement.  California’s students and tax payers deserve better than corrupt, self-serving, mismanagement eroding the once great educational system of this state.  We will fire any politician who stands in the way of reforming CSU executive pay with the ballot-box next year.