UC Regent Chairman Richard C. Blum and UC President Mark G. Yudof suggested (Open Forum, March 26, "A need for perspective") that The Chronicle's news pages have misrepresented recent UC actions on executive salaries. They cite the news story "Even in recession UC raises top salaries; gives perks" as an example of a "misleading and incomplete appraisal of several administrative salaries." We disagree.

Despite stating as fact that they have frozen "senior managers' salaries, cut bonuses and incentive pay," they in fact have made exceptions. As Chronicle staff writer Jim Doyle's article noted, the UC regents continue to make exceptions by awarding huge salary increases or bonuses to UC executives. They make exceptions though stipends. They make exceptions through retention increases. And they make exceptions by re-slotting positions to higher salary ranges. The bottom line is that the number of UC executives earning more than $200,000 nearly tripled in recent years.

Perspective is needed on UC salaries, but from our perspective, the premises on which Blum and Yudof are running this great university will run it into the ground. Yudof sees the university from the perspective of an executive whose annual total compensation is nearly $1 million dollars, and who lives in the Oakland hills, where taxpayers cover more than $100,000 a year of his rent while millions are spent to renovate the UC presidential mansion. Blum sees the university from the perspective of a man of tremendous wealth - an investment banker who chairs several investment management firms.

Here are the facts:

-- Across its 10 campuses and five medical centers, UC is facing a budget gap of $450 million over a 2-year budget period. This $225 million-a-year deficit represents just over 1 percent of the annual UC budget of almost $20 billion. Overall, this is a very small piece of the pie.

-- On the UC Berkeley campus, for example, there is a $60 million to $70 million budget deficit as a result of cuts in state funding and increased spending on programs, salaries and other obligations. On Tuesday, at a campus wide meeting, the administration called for curtailing faculty hires, laying off staff and raising student fees. Meanwhile, the administration has openly promoted UC Berkeley's success in fundraising, now totaling $1.4 billion in private donations. Though this is 20 times more than what is needed to close the budget gap, the administration claims such funding is restricted, and thus not available.

-- At the same meeting, the administration said that of the nearly $1 billion in UC Berkeley cash reserves, about one-third is unrestricted. This amount, $300 million, could cover the budget shortfall there for another four years. Financially, other campuses such as UCLA, and the medical centers, have similar budget reserves.

Despite these reserve funds, the regents decided it was necessary to raise student fees last week by more than 9 percent.

The University of California is a state jewel. We are proud to work for an institution that brings together many of the brightest minds of California and conducts world-class research. But the administrators at the top are running the UC system like a corporation, where student tuition is raised because it is deemed to be below market (UC administrators often repeat that a UC education is still a very good deal) and where research and education continue to take a back seat to executive pay.

From our perspective, UC has extensive sources of funding, large surpluses, and the expectation of receiving research grants from the federal economic stimulus package. UC management's explanations of necessary cuts to education and research don't mesh with the facts. Neither the taxpayers nor the students should be satisfied with these explanations. We aren't.

Furthermore Blum and Yudof do not adequately explain the need for exorbitant salaries of UC executives. They should follow the lead of AIG executives who returned bonuses this week and of Stanford executives who voluntarily took pay cuts last fall.