| | | |

Let’s Start With This Idea on the Pension Initiative: One Size Doesn’t Fit All

Byuclafaculty
Don’t buy it.

Editorial: The pension (and retiree health) initiative on which we have been reporting on this blog sweeps in UC for no particular reason.  Yet all the propaganda concerning it so far deals with mayors and cities.  UC has no mayor and isn’t a city.

Were the Regents consulted by initiative proponents?  Was anyone at UCOP consulted?  Anyone at UC at all?  Yours truly sincerely doubts it.  Did anyone in the group pushing the initiative look at such issues as faculty recruitment, compensation, or any other UC issue?  Did they look at the issue of the constitutional autonomy of the Regents?

Basically, UC needs out.  The proponents of the initiative have plenty of time either to file a revised initiative excluding UC or making an amendment to what they have filed so far. 

The Regents, as blog readers will know, amended the UC pension plan in 2010, well before the state enacted its own plan (which exempted UC because of its earlier action).  We don’t want to be swept into someone else’s plan.  Where the governor stands on all of this is unclear.  The Sacramento Bee is reporting that he put a proponent of changes similar to the ones in the initiative on to a state board.  See http://www.sacbee.com/2013/10/17/5830657/jerry-brown-taps-pension-reform.html.  CalPERS opposes the initiative.  See http://www.sacbee.com/2013/10/16/v-print/5827735/calpers-weighs-in-on-new-public.html and http://www.calpers.ca.gov/index.jsp?bc=/about/press/pr-2013/oct/pension-ballot-initiative.xml.  However, the legal fight that CalPERS is having with the bankrupt City of San Bernardino is tending to inflame the pension issue in the public mind.  See http://www.sacbee.com/2013/10/18/5831919/calpers-renews-san-bernardino.html. The renewed BART strike in the Bay Area also is not going to help with public opinion.  So, again, UC needs out.  And if it can’t get out, UC needs a plan pronto.

Similar Posts

Academic Senate Rejects New Pension Tier
| |

Academic Senate Rejects New Pension Tier

Byhigbie

Representatives of UC faculty on all campuses delivered a strongly worded rejection of the proposed 2016 pension tier. Reports from the campuses were extensive and overwhelmingly negative (link to PDF). Berkeley faculty called the proposal “imprudent and potentially fiscally irresponsible.” Davis faculty said, “It is a myth that UCRP is too generous,” and went on to detail a long list of likely negative outcomes from the new tier. Irvine faculty noted “the level of disappointment and depth of passion expressed from all quarters about the negative impact that the imposition of the PEPRA cap has on the future of the…

|

Faculty Voice Opposition to Pension Proposal

Byhigbie

On Friday, the UCLA Academic Senate hosted an informational meeting that explained in clear terms that this is a bad, bad plan for faculty. What to do about it was less clear cut. Shane White gave a deeply detailed account of financial aspects of the plan (Slides here: Pension Presentation by Shane White). Among the things we learned: Last year’s budget deal introduced the “PEPRA cap” to UC retirement benefits. This is not a limit on retirement pay-outs, but a cap on the earnings that are used to calculate retirement pay-outs. So any new hire after July 1, 2016 who…

| | |

Pension Changes Proposed: lower benefits, little savings, weaker UCRS

Byhigbie

The University of California will soon have a third pension tier if the Regents approve a plan put forth by the Retirement Options Task Force on Friday. UC President Janet Napolitano charged the Task Force, which included management and Academic Senate representatives, with finding a way to implement her agreement with Gov. Brown to set a cap on pension benefits in exchange for state funds to support the pension system. Over the weekend, as faculty activists read the task force report and a second report produced by Senate leaders (Guide to reviewing the recommendations of the Retirement Options Task Force)…

| | |

The Degradation of Faculty Welfare and Compensation

Byuclafaculty

Colleen Lye and James Vernon (UC Berkeley Faculty Association) UC faculty need to wake up to the systematic degradation of their pay and benefits.  In 2009, when the salary furlough temporarily cut faculty salaries between 6 and 10%, faculty were outraged.  Yet since then our compensation has been hit by a more serious, and seemingly permanent, double blow. First, despite modest salary rises of 3% and 2% in October 2011 and July 2013, faculty take-home pay has been effectively cut as employee contributions to pension and healthcare have escalated.  Faculty now pay more for retirement and healthcare programs that offer less.  Secondly, faculty are…

| |

PBS’ Hot Potato May Not Be on California Stations

Byuclafaculty

As far as yours truly can tell, the major PBS affiliates in California have so far taken a pass on the hot potato program described below.  That decision could have been because the threatened pension initiative that would have swept in UC was originally aimed at the November 2014 ballot.  With it apparently off the ballot for now (see earlier posts), some stations might air the program.  On verra. The Wolf of Sesame Street: Revealing the secret corruption inside PBS’s news division On December 18th, the Public Broadcasting Service’s flagship station WNET issued a press release announcing the launch of…

| | | | | | | | |

Tradition!

Byuclafaculty

The Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) has issued a report on UC and CSU funding.  LAO is usually viewed as a neutral agency.  But it is a component of the legislature.  So it tends to favor approaches that add to legislative control as opposed to, say, gubernatorial control.  This report is no exception. LAO seems to want to return to what it terms the “traditional” approach to funding, but with bells and whistles added to monitor legislative goals.  The traditional approach seems to be one focused on undergraduate enrollment.  But in fact the tradition – such as it is – has…