Listen to Audio of Regents Meeting of 9-16-10 (Approval of Increased Pension Contributions)

The Regents provide a live audio stream of their meetings but they don’t place the recordings online afterward. However, yours truly recorded the Regents meeting of earlier today. It involved preliminary discussion of the retirement system – pension and retiree healthcare – and the raising of the employer and employee contributions to the pension. Also approved was an augmentation of the members of the Investment Advisory Board to the pension fund. See the earlier post on this blog on that subject.

I had to convert the audio into videos (just a still picture on the screen) so that it could be uploaded to Yahoo-video. Yahoo-video has a 15 minute limit so there are 10 videos, Parts 1, 2, 3….10.

Part 3 is interesting because a demonstration broke out and the room was cleared. Usually, the microphone is cut off during such episodes. However, someone neglected to turn it off and in the last minute you can hear two voices (Regents?) discussing possible legal problems in charging a particular demonstrator. There is a statement that we need to keep the lawyers out of it. Then the mike was cut off. (In an earlier version of this post, I interpreted the particular demonstrator to be a student. Another interpretation is that since the person is identified as a senior VP, he/she was not a student (not a college “senior”) but a senior member of UC management.)

UPDATE: News reports of the meeting at:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/09/17/BA6G1FF2K1.DTL

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/nov05election/detail?entry_id=72469

http://www.dailynews.com/breakingnews/ci_16094645

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-uc-20100917,0,1595539.story

Regents 9-16-10 audios:

Part 1: Public comment period. The first speaker was someone with a personal grievance who spoke incoherently and would not stop after the time limit was reached. She was removed and the mike was cut off. So there is a silent interval in the recording. The remainder were individuals dealing with the pension and related issues.

Part 2: Public comment period continues

Part 3: Demonstration occurs; room cleared; mike left open inadvertently and picks up conversation described above in italics. (There is a typo in the starting title – sorry. But it is more trouble than it’s worth to fix it.)

Part 4: Discussion of retirement system begins. Note: About a minute and a half of silence was edited out – the period when the mike was cut off and the room was cleared, as per above.

Part 5: Discussion of retirement system continues

Part 6: Discussion of retirement system continues

Part 7: Discussion of retirement system continues. President Yudof is asked toward the end about the lack of a state contribution. He says progress is being made with the state but expresses concern about what would happen if the state ultimately refuses.

Part 8: Yudof’s comments regarding the state continue. Says he is “frightened” of the impact of a refusal by the state to pay on the future UC operating budget. Discussion of retirement system concludes. Vote taken approving pension contribution increases.

Part 9: Discussion of a UCSF capital project followed by discussion of various proposals related to executive pay.

Part 10 (end): Executive pay discussion continues. Expansion of Investment Advisory Board approved. There is a return at about the 8-minute point to a matter related to executive pay. The Academic Senate representatives oppose the item but it is approved. Miscellaneous topics. (Meeting ends.)

UPDATE: Calpensions.com provided a later review of the issues and describes the $2-for-$1 problem, which other reports miss. See http://calpensions.com/2010/09/22/uc-task-force-pensions-frightening-challenge-2/