Cal Poly faculty to picket over administrator pay

May 13, 2015
Jeffrey Armstrong

Jeffrey Armstrong

Cal Poly faculty members will picket outside the administration building on campus Thursday to protest overspending on administrators and lack of spending on the university’s other employees. [Tribune]

The university faculty union says it will deliver a petition to Cal Poly President Jeffrey Armstrong calling for a moratorium on administrator pay increases and a roll back of administration pay rates to the 2010 levels. But, the petition also calls for allowing pay hikes for administration, if faculty members, too, receive increases.

From 2010 to 2014, Cal Poly increased the number of administrators by 39 percent, according to the faculty union. The university also increased spending on administrators by 43 percent.

“Meanwhile, the number of faculty has increased slowly, and most of those are temporary positions,” a union statement says. “And faculty pay has stagnated. This, even as the number of students increases.”

Armstrong began his tenure as university president in Feb. 2011. Upon his hiring, CSU trustees approved a compensation package that included $350,000 in yearly pay plus an annual supplement of $30,000 that comes from the Cal Poly Foundation.

Until then, the university’s published salary range for campus presidents was $223,584 to $328,212.

Previous Cal Poly president Warren Baker is currently San Luis Obispo County’s highest earning pensioner. Baker received a $250,687 pension in 2013, which was the 20th-highest in the entire CalPERS system.


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My kids went to Cal Poly and I think they got a great education. They are both engineers and successful in their lives now. It really did take a village though to get them through with regards to tuition and living expenses – and that was 12 years ago. All the grandparents helped us and they were lucky because they didn’t graduate with a ton of debt, but still had student loans to repay anyway.


The faculty at Poly are very dedicated to what they do. I think it’s downright ridiculous though the amount of administrators that are on that campus. I mean really how many assistant vice presidents does one campus need? All of these administrative positions come with very nice salaries allowing these people to purchase big fancy homes in SLO.


I’m glad the faculty are questioning this questionable practice!