$3.1M in incentive pay at UCMCs

During their their meeting this week in San Francisco, the Regents are expected to approve $3.1M in incentive pay for 38 senior medical center managers. That's an average of $81,600 for each manager, with David Feinberg, head of UCLA's Medical Center, earning close to $220,000 in incentive pay alone.

UCSF Chancellor Susan Desmond-Hellmann said her hospital saw a more than 5 percent drop in one type of infection, and that 89.5 percent of patients surveyed reported being satisfied with care. "This is how you run a great medical center," she said, referring to incentives.

The $3.1M do not come from state funds, but from medical center profits. According to the SF Chonicle,  the University would likely be sued if they did not approve the incentive pay (as such incentives were in the managers' appointment letters).

This raises a couple of questions:

1. The MCs are turning out millions in profits, should they not be asked to help support the University at large, the same way in which the University at large supports them?
2. There are many faculty and perhaps staff whose salary is specified in their letters of appointment or promotion. Why does the furlough program not expose the University to potential lawsuits from these faculty and staff?
3. And, since we are at it, why not extend the incentive program across the board? Here is a deal: if 89.5% of my students are satisfied with my teaching and I increase their test scores by 5%, I propose that the University  award me the average incentive of $81,600.