UC Regents Get Driven Around in Luxury Cars
At Board Meetings, Cost was 10 Times that of Hailing a Cab

The University of California spent more than $90,000 last year to shuttle members of the governing Board of Regents around town in a caravan of chauffeur-driven luxury cars during five meetings in the Bay Area.

The cost to taxpayers was roughly 10 times that of hailing the regents a cab, a Chronicle analysis found.

"The number is a bit flabbergasting," said Patrick Callan, president of the nonprofit National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education. "Nobody would expect these people to take the Greyhound bus or stay at the Motel 6, but it raises the question of whether this is appropriate for a public institution, for the people who are the stewards of the public's money. It raises the question about whether the regents are part of the pattern of lavish perks and compensation."

Since November, the 10-campus UC system has been swept up in a controversy over tens of millions of dollars in hidden perks and compensation being paid to employees at the same time student fees were dramatically increased and services were slashed.

It turns out some members of the 26-member Board of Regents, which oversees UC operations, have received some pampering themselves.

A typical example is the May 2005 regents meeting in San Francisco when the university spent about $18,000 for cars, hired by the hour from Bauer's Limousine Service, for the two-day meeting, according to travel expense records reviewed by The [San Francisco] Chronicle.

One portion of that bill came to $6,000 and covered one evening when 10 Lincoln Town Cars transported 15 regents and some chancellors and vice presidents 2 1/2 miles from the meeting at the UCSF Laurel Heights campus on California Street to the Pan Pacific hotel, where they were staying. The cars and drivers then waited until their passengers were ready to go to dinner, and drove them less than a mile to the upscale Hawthorne Lane restaurant. The cars and drivers waited several hours more while the regents and UC administrators dined, before driving them back to the hotel.

The bill shows UC spent another $1,113 on individual cars for Regents Gerald Parsky and Peter Preuss, who were not staying at the Pan Pacific hotel with the rest of the out-of-town regents.

The car service cost did not include transportation from the airport to the hotel before the meeting because regents arrived at different times and took taxis for which they can then get reimbursed.

UC spokesman Paul Schwartz said the logistics of transporting the regents, "who give considerable time, energy and effort to the institution," any other way would be inefficient.

"Due to the unpredictability of meeting end times, it is difficult to get enough taxis in a timely manner after meetings," a UC statement said. "It is more efficient to pay a flat rate for a car service, and have its services for the entire day, than to pay high fares associated with long taxi wait times. Car services allow UC to move groups of people more easily than taxis."


…UC could have saved thousands of dollars by using taxi cabs, van service or even rental cars. At its only meeting outside the Bay Area last year, for instance, UC spent less than half as much as usual -- $7,403 -- using a campus van service to ferry the regents around for the three-day meeting at UCLA.

UC's spokesman, Schwartz, said that at UCLA and most of the other campuses, the regents use campus vehicles -- or a combination of campus transportation and an outside vendor for ground transportation.

UC uses the Bauer's car service for meetings in San Francisco because UCSF does not have enough large vehicles to accommodate them, he said. However, almost all the meetings are held in San Francisco. In the year reviewed by The Chronicle, only two meetings were held out of town -- at UCLA and UC Berkeley. And when the regents met at UC Berkeley in November 2005, UC still used the Bauer's car service at a cost of $19,340.30.

Using taxis for the in-town transportation and to take the regents back to the airport would cost about one-tenth of what UC now spends, a Chronicle analysis concluded. In May, for example, a taxi ride from the hotel to the meeting would have cost roughly $12 plus tip each way in a Yellow Cab. The ride to the restaurant would have been about $8 each way in a Yellow Cab. A ride to the airport would cost at most $50 with tip. The total cost for taxis, including tip, would have been about $120 each.

Even renting each regent their own Jaguar X-Type from Hertz and paying $100 in parking for the three days would cost about half of what UC currently spends, the analysis found.

In comparison, California State University spent $8,686 during all of last fiscal year on car services for its 25-member board of trustees, who meet seven times a year at CSU headquarters in Long Beach. It will spend about $5,545 this fiscal year.