UC Regents Raise Chancellors’ Pay : Education: Hike is the first in three years. Berkeley’s Tien gets biggest increase, 10.7%. Student regent is lone dissenter.

SAN FRANCISCO —  The nine University of California chancellors received their first pay raises in three years Friday when the UC Board of Regents agreed that its top executives--whose annual salaries range from about $165,000 to $243,000--are underpaid.

Over the objection of Student Regent Edward Gomez, the board voted to give eight of its chancellors raises of 3.5% to 5%.

But UC Berkeley Chancellor Chang-Lin Tien got a $20,600 raise--amounting to a 10.7% pay hike--that will make his salary equal to that of UCLA Chancellor Charles E. Young.

UC administrators had proposed a 5% raise for Tien, but the board’s finance committee, citing this week’s national rankings that rated UC Berkeley’s graduate programs No. 1 in the country, opted to more than double that. The raises, which are retroactive to Sept. 1, boost Tien’s and Young’s salaries to $212,100.

Some regents opposed the decision on Tien, noting that Young has headed UCLA for 26 years, compared to Tien’s five years at Berkeley. But Regent Leo Kolligian, who made the motion to raise Tien’s salary to the level of Young’s, thought Tien has more than earned the increase.

“He has reached out to students--the students love him. And the faculty respects him,” Kolligian said. “He’s entitled to it and I feel good about it.”

There has been speculation that Tien--whose willingness to speak out on controversial issues has earned him a reputation as a courageous leader--had recently been considering leaving the university. But the regents said Friday that did not play a part in their decision, and Tien called the talk “just rumors.”

A grateful Tien said he and his wife have agreed to donate $10,000 of the increase to support the “Berkeley pledge”--an outreach program unveiled earlier this month in response to the regents’ recent rollback of affirmative action that will help prepare disadvantaged students to meet UC Berkeley admissions requirements.

Tien said he hopes the donation will be important symbolically as well as financially. “When the university is facing difficult economic times, when students have had to accept fee increases, I think it is important for me to set an example,” he said.

The regents also approved raises for 257 vice presidents, vice chancellors, deans and principal officers. Because incoming UC President Richard C. Atkinson, who takes office Oct. 1, has just been hired at a salary of $243,500, the regents did not approve a raise for him.

The university’s 1995-96 budget has already provided raises for faculty and staff.

Gomez was the lone dissenting vote on the compensation package. He said he believed the chancellors--whose salaries lag behind the national average for comparable institutions--are doing an excellent job, but in light of the university’s budget problems and the recent surge in student fees, raises should not be a priority.

“How do I explain to the [students’] parents that these people who are making $200,000 or $250,000 a year need another $10,000 a year in their paycheck? I have a real problem with that,” Gomez said. “I’m not saying the chancellors aren’t worthy. . . . But who’s taking the brunt of this? Somebody who’s making $200,000? Or somebody whose children are barely making it in?”

In other business, the regents named former UC San Diego Vice Chancellor Marjorie C. Caserio as the campus’ interim chancellor. Caserio, who had retired, will occupy the job until June 30, 1996, or until a new chancellor is selected.

Friday’s regents meeting was UC President Jack W. Peltason’s last. He steps down on Oct. 1, after three years in the job. In his farewell remarks, Peltason, 71, said he had accomplished his primary goal: halting the downward spiral in UC’s budget. He declared the university to be on “sound financial footing,” at least for the near term.

Peltason noted that revenues from university patents reached more than $63 million in fiscal 1995, a record he said was unequaled in higher education. Moreover, private fund raising is at an all-time high.

But Peltason cautioned that as UC is forced to think more about its financial health, it must be careful not to lose sight of its overall educational duty to the state.

“We’re not out of this fiscal crisis. The university is still underfunded. . . . In our zeal for efficiency and economy, we have to be sure that we do not adopt practices or policies that are inimical to learning,” he said. “We need to be careful not to become the best managed second-rate university in the world.”