Author: admin

  • In Limbo Waiting for CalPERS Decision on Projected Earnings: How Low Can You Go?

    Byadmin

    Defined-benefit pension plans such as CalPERS and UCRP have to forecast what their earnings on their assets will be over extended periods of time.  A lower forecast will produce a higher estimate of their unfunded liability.  In turn, a higher estimate of the unfunded liability will likely trigger higher employer and/or employee contributions to the plan. It is important to note, however, that changing the forecast does not change the future in the sense that the earnings rate will be what it turns out to be.  If the forecast of the earnings rate over time seems to be too low…

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    Golden Rule Not So Golden, Judge?

    Byadmin

    From time to time, yours truly has protested in this blog and elsewhere about the willy-nilly online publication of pay and pensions of public workers by various newspapers by name, including those at UC. It is quite possible to provide public information by job title and through charts and graphics summarizing averages and other descriptors without naming names. The state controller, for example, has a database that just gives pay by job title at the local level. Publication by name is an invasion of privacy and invites ID theft. So far, no newspaper has been willing to put their own…

  • Political Side of State Budget is Uncertain

    Byadmin

    Governor Brown has an initiative in circulation that would impose temporary taxes on the upper brackets of the income tax but also involves the more generally-paid sales tax.  As readers of this blog will know, his January budget plan assumes that voters will approve the initiative in November.  If it is not approved, his budget would impose large trigger cuts in spending that are focused on K-12 schools.  So the budget (which must be enacted by the legislature) and the initiative (which must be enacted by voters) are intertwined. The governor’s tax plan was designed in accordance with public opinion…

  • Hold the Pepper

    Byadmin

    From the Sacramento Bee’s AM Alert today:PEPPER SPRAY – Cruz Reynoso’s probe of the Nov. 18 incident at UC Davis in which campus police used pepper spray on protesting students was scheduled for release today – but now has been postponed. A task force headed by the former state Supreme Court justice was asked to make recommendations on handling protests to Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi. But the report has been delayed pending legal action by the union for campus officers, who want to prevent it from being made public.Available at http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2012/03/am-alert-261.html Update: A later news item today indicates the judge in the…

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    Being on Both Sides

    Byadmin

    From the Sacramento Bee’s Capitol Alert story about yesterday’s rally at the state capitol: College students and activists are rallying today in Sacramento to protest state budget cuts in higher education. They will be joined at one Capitol rally by Democratic legislative leaders who negotiated budgets that included those cuts in recent years.  It’s one example of the murky budget politics surrounding higher education… Full story at: http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2012/03/college-students-and-activists-are.html It’s nice to be able to be on both sides: [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcrEqIpi6sg&w=320&h=195]Update: Dan Walters, a columnist for the Sacramento Bee, makes the same point today in an op ed that concludes with the…

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    UC (and UCLA) Campus Climate Survey

    Byadmin

    After a series of racial incidents on various campuses (including UCLA), UCOP and the Regents hired a consultant, Susan Rankin of Penn State, to do a “campus climate survey.”  She has done such survey work at other universities in different parts of the U.S. in recent years. This is an expensive endeavor.  I have been told informally that the cost is something like half a million dollars.  The survey instrument draft proposal is quite lengthy and there have been concerns about participation rates for faculty, staff, and students.  Participation will be voluntary and anonymous.  Each campus will have a survey….

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    Tuition Comparison Shopping

    Byadmin

    Inside Higher Ed today pointed to an article from the San Jose Mercury-News noting that for certain families, it’s cheaper to go to Harvard than to CSU or UC.  The issue is complicated.  Not all private universities offer the reductions in sticker price tuition that Harvard does (and not everyone gets into private universities that do). An interesting question is what happens at lower incomes than the $130,000 family income cited in the article.  Public universities and privates (if they have the resources) can lower tuition to zero.  Publics may have more problems in giving the full ride (tuition, housing,…