Month: August 2011

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    Pension Tax?

    Byuclafaculty

    An initiative was submitted in July to the Attorney General proposing to tax public pensions above $100,000. It applies only to CalPERS and CalSTRS and not UC. As noted in this blog, anyone can submit and initiative (anyone with $200). But as a practical matter, you need $1-$2 million to pay signature gathering firms if you want to get it on the ballot. And, if the measure is controversial, you may need tens of millions for TV ads, etc., thereafter for a campaign. The submitter of this particular initiative is Lanny Ebenstein whose CV is at http://www.sbcta.org/lannyebenstein.html It seems unlikely…

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    UC opts out of controller’s public pay database (and shouldn’t)

    Byuclafaculty

    Below is a news article and a comment by yours truly that follows the article: UC opts out of controller’s public pay database (excerpt) 8/18/11, San Diego Union-Tribune Hundreds of government agencies across the state, from the Vista Irrigation District to the Governor’s Office, have provided state Controller John Chiang with detailed salary and benefit information on public employees. Not the University of California… The UC system is the only state agency that has not complied. UC officials said they already maintain a listing of employee salaries, with formulas to estimate the cost of other benefits. The complete database of…

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    How Transparent Should UC Foundations Be? The Governor Will Give Us His View Soon

    Byuclafaculty

    Bill on university groups’ public disclosure heads to Jerry Brown CapitolAlert, 8/18/11 Leland Yee is hoping the third time’s a charm. Senate Bill 8, which would expand the authority of the California Public Records Act on the state’s college campuses, is heading to Gov. Jerry Brown for consideration. The San Francisco Democrat’s two previous bills to subject college auxiliary organizations, such as foundations, to the state’s public records act were vetoed by then Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The Senate approved amendments to the current version today, 36-1, sending it to Brown’s desk. …(L)ast year the foundation at California State University, Stanislaus,…

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    The Sun Rises on UC Online Education

    Byuclafaculty

    In the 1950s, you could take college courses via “Sunrise Semester” on your black and white TV. Now we have online ed, where you don’t have to get up early in the morning to watch your course and it is in color. See below: UC takes first steps into online education (excerpt) Lisa M. Krieger, 8/18/2011, Contra Costa Times Going online to get a college degree has been championed as a cost-effective way to educate the masses and challenged as a cheapening of academia. Now, the online classroom is coming to the vaunted UC system, making it the nation’s first…

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    Faculty Giving to UCLA: More Generous than John D.

    Byuclafaculty

    Faculty giving to UCLA is reported in UCLA Today of 8/16/11 and we are clearly more generous than John D. Rockefeller, at least as pictured above: …With a push from a faculty-giving campaign that launched in December 2010, faculty giving increased 51 percent from $5.81 million in FY 2010 to $8.77 million in FY 2011. The number of faculty donors also increased 17 percent from 1,312 to a total of 1,529. … Full story at http://today.ucla.edu/portal/ut/gift-totals-rise-for-year-as-donors-213561.aspx Thanks for Bette Billet for this reference.

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    Translated: Recreation Price Increase

    Byuclafaculty

    The notice in italics below appeared in UCLA Today Aug. 15 (excerpt) and seems to be announcing a price increase for recreation services. Alternatively, for free you can wait to play in the snow on campus as in January 1932. UCLA Recreation has revamped its membership structure with new pricing options and simplified its offerings into three campus zones. Faculty and staff can now select memberships to access one, two or all three of the new zones, explained Bill Aberbuch, the marketing services manager for Recreation. The Central Zone includes the John Wooden Center, the Student Activities Center (except for…

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    Yudof Announces Merit Pay Increase Plan

    Byuclafaculty

    President Yudof has issued a letter today indicating there will be merit-based pay raises for faculty “at all levels” of 3% and non-represented (nonunion) staff earning up to $200,000. It is unclear exactly what this means for faculty (who get step and promotion advances). The letter is at http://www.scribd.com/doc/62519367/Pres-Yudof-Letter-081711 A Sacramento Bee description of the letter and some background is at http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2011/08/university-of-california-employees-may-get-raises-mark-yudof.html Clearly, a golden future awaits: Update: There is a LA Times version of this story at http://www.latimes.com/health/la-me-uc-pay-20110818,0,298613.story But it does not make the matter any clearer. Update: The San Francisco Chronicle version tends to put a negative spin…

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    Wilshire-Gayley Hotel Plan Reported to be Moving Right Along

    Byuclafaculty

    As previous posts on this blog have noted, a local developer bought and cleared the old Hollywood video store site at the corner of Wilshire and Gayley with plans to open a new Westwood hotel. LAObserved reported yesterday that the Wilshire-Gayley plan is moving along, with an architect hired to deal with the odd triangular shape of the site. (There is a further link in the LAObserved article to a more detailed piece on the proposed hotel.) You can find the article at http://www.laobserved.com/archive/2011/08/westwood_village_hotel_wo.php Readers of this blog will also know that UCLA has been proposing to build a 280-room…

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    UCLA History: Murphy

    Byuclafaculty

    The photo at the top is of Franklin Murphy, chancellor of UCLA in the 1960s until his resignation in 1968 to become chair of Times-Mirror. At the bottom is Murphy, former President Eisenhower, and UC president Clark Kerr. The two photos are reproduced from Margaret Leslie Davis, The Culture Broker: Franklin D. Murphy and the Transformation of Los Angeles (UC Press, 2007). The opening chapters of the book tell of Murphy’s recruitment from the U of Kansas – which he headed – by the downtown business movers and shakers of LA to be chancellor of UCLA. At the time, there…