The $100,000 Consultant

Remember that pepper-spraying incident at UC Davis not so long ago? I sure do – I was on campus at the time. There was a lot of commotion, and a heck of a lot of angry words exchanged. It caused quite an uproar, that’s for sure, but don’t you think the school’s administration should’ve been on their best behavior in the following months? Think again.

It turns out that the school brought in a crisis communications consultant to help deal with the crisis, and this said consultant raked in an incredible $100,000 from the school. Is that really where all of the money from tuition raises is going? I sure hope not. Perhaps this senior Marsh consultant’s help was actually, err, helpful? Take a look at this:

Credits flickr/zipckr (and Dilbert, of course)

Let’s start with the fact that until 2010, this very consultant had ties with the school. A business named Kroll Inc. is a firm hired by UC Davis to “independently” find out what really happened on the day of the pepper-spraying incident. Kroll Inc. has ties with this business called Marsh Risk Consulting, which is where our $100,000 consultant came from.

Needless to say, Mark Yudof (The UC’s President) immediately found himself under fire from critics on the decision. However, Mr. Yudof dismissed the issue. “I’m a lawyer. There is zip, zero conflict here.” It is important to note however that he chose Kroll to handle the pepper-spraying investigation on a recommendation made by a task force led by former California Supreme Court Justice Cruz Reynoso.

At first the consultant worked three to four days per week on campus beginning not even a week after the incident had occurred. According to Lynn Tierney, the consultant acted “almost like an air-traffic controller,” as the UC dealt with all the attention from the press. I’m pretty sure real air-traffic controllers don’t’ get paid $375 an hour, and that’s actually their job.

Yes, that’s right – $375 an hour. What happened to our budget crisis? Guess it’s all fixed now – not.

The Marsh consultant also helped plan UC Davis’ responses to questions from furious parents, students, employees, and alumni, just to name a few, in addition to long-term planning work for the school. The director of UCD News Service Claudia Morain said that having a consultant on hand was helpful.

But now for some numbers: Davis was paying Marsh Risk Consulting $375/hour (for our little consultant), in addition to $300/hour for Kroll Inc., both of which comes from the UC’s risk insurance funds. On top of this, the UC is also paying Van Dermyden Allison Law Corp. of Sacramento $250/hour and Norman A Traub Associates (based in Yorba Linda) an additional $160/hour to help with the campus’ internal investigation.

I’m all for helping people out, but this sounds to me more like the University trying to protect their own reputation, and using the student’s money to do it. Oh, and by the way, Kroll has access to pretty much whatever documents they want from the school. Is this an awesome way to find and expose all the facts of what really happened on the day of the infamous pepper-spraying incident, or the perfect alibi for a cover-up and to help the people behind this act keep their jobs? Who knows.

But that’s just me – what do you guys think? Comment below.

While the opinions are mine, the information is not. All of the information found in this article came from Cory Golden on January 26, 2012, and can be found here: http://www.davisenterprise.com/local-news/crime-fire-courts/uc-spent-100000-on-consultant-after-pepper-spraying/