Straws in the Fiscal Winds: State and Campus

Various straws in the state and UCLA budgetary winds today. The controversy over whether legislators will get paid after having passed a budget by the constitutional deadline which was then vetoed remains. Politicos are waiting state controller John Chiang’s decision on whether the vetoed budget was “balance” by some definition.

Whatever he decides seems likely to be litigated. No one who has been state controller has ever said that his/her sole political ambition since age 4 has been to be state controller. I would venture to say that all of them would like to “advance” to some other office eventually. And all of them have the problem that the controller usually has only one moment in the sun, i.e., when there is no state budget on July 1 and the controller gets to announce who gets paid and who doesn’t.

This time around, the controller might get two sunshine moments: 1) announcing whether to pay legislators (saying “no” would likely be the most popular choice) and 2) who gets paid after July 1 if there is no budget – which is becoming more probable as the clock ticks. There is a buzz today over whether a new budget deal can be put together by July 1. For details on these matters, maybe more than you wanted to know, see:

http://www.sacbee.com/2011/06/21/3715432/qa-controller-john-chiang-ponders.html

http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2011/06/chamber-ceo-says-still-time-fo.html

Closer to home, UCLA – with its own version of a budget squeeze – seems to be mirroring the fee vs. tax issue that has gone on in Sacramento in the past. Taxes require a 2/3 vote. Until last November when voters tightened the rules, fees did not. The line between fees and taxes was often blurred.

The Daily Bruin reported yesterday that Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education Judith Smith would like to cost of the student writing clinic to be funded from student fees. However, there is an issue over whether the clinic is a “core” educational function – in which case student fees are not supposed to be used to cover its costs. It is likely that we will see more such issues arising in the future. For details, see

http://www.dailybruin.com/index.php/ahttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifrticle/2011/06/uc_student_fee_policy_may_bar_the_use_of_funds_for_a_writing_center_that_would_replace_covel_peer_le

Finally, for the astronomically challenged who do not realize the significance of today (June 21), there is:

Update: State controller issued a press release today saying he won’t pay legislators due to “incomplete and unbalanced” budget. See http://sco.ca.gov/PDF-Var/eo_pressrel_10078.pdf