Cal State Long Beach paid the most in total employee wages of all Cal State University campuses last year, according to data on the State Controller’s Office website.
CSULB paid more than $203 million in employee wages in 2012-13, yet it had the third highest number of employees in the entire 23-campus system, according to the data.
San Francisco State University had the most employees at 7,654, while Cal State Northridge had the second most at 7,640, according to the data. CSULB came in third with 7,499 employees.
By comparison, SFSU paid its employees just under $198 million while CSUN paid little more than $201 million.
According to CSU Spokesman Erik Fallis, the data from the State Controller’s Office includes several forms of payment in addition to salary.
“These types of payments may include those who cash-out unused vacation time upon leaving the CSU or receive a payment in lieu of health benefits,” Fallis said via email.
Fallis said that the data also includes payments to part-time student assistants.
CSULB’s total salaries accounts for 7.5 percent of the CSU system’s expense in wages, according to Interim Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs David Dowell.
Dowell said that the 7.5 percent is also “almost exactly” proportional to the university’s share of enrollment in the system, which may help to explain CSULB’s portion of expenses in wages.
A contributing factor for CSULB’s wages paid last year, Dowell said, might also be that the university “did a better job than most CSUs,” of maintaining classes for students during the budget downturn. He said maintaining those classes meant maintaining pay for instructors as well.
“The fact that we protected classes for students, we also had to protect salaries for faculty to teach them,” Dowell said. “That was a real priority for our campus.”
According to the data, CSULB’s average wage for employees is $27,171, just above the CSU average of $26,457.
In comparison, the data showed that the universities trailing behind CSULB in most wages paid last year were CSUN and San Diego State University, which pay an average wage of $26,320 and $26,494, respectively.
Additionally, the State Controller’s Office data showed that the president, along with the majority of administrative and instructional faculty and a few department chair positions earn the highest pay.
According to the data, the highest paying job at CSULB last year was the university president, which paid $320,251.
CSUN paid a noticeably lesser amount to its president, $136,982 in 2012-13, according to the data. On the other hand, the data listed SDSU as paying its president $359,358.
On-campus work-study, student assistant and some graduate assistant positions were paid the least, according to the data.