Author: uclafaculty

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Circulating Cap

Byuclafaculty

The initiative filed to place a formula cap on state spending can now be circulated with the summary and title below. As prior posts have noted, this initiative seems to have been filed as part of negotiations between Republican legislators and the governor regarding the state budget. It essentially rejuvenates the old Gann Limit concept that voters approved in the wake of Prop 13 but later gutted. Whether someone has the needed $1-$2 million to hire signature gathering firms is unknown. The governor said in his May revise oral presentation that he supports a cap. He did not specify the…

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Jerry Brown as the Terminator (of CPEC): LAO Objects

Byuclafaculty

The California Postsecondary Education Commission (CPEC) is among the boards and commissions the governor proposed in the May revise for termination. CPEC is supposed to coordinate among the public and private elements of higher ed. However, the Legislative Analyst’s Office prefers other options, or at least suggests such alternatives be considered. LAO’s position below: Options Related to Governor’s Proposal for CPEC Background We believe there are several critical coordination functions necessary to protect the state’s investment in higher education. Examples include data collection and analysis, planning and oversight, and review of new program and campus proposals. Some of these activities…

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Who Will Bail Out UC?

Byuclafaculty

The parking of a Hummer belonging to Lipstick Bail Bonds (slogan: “Kiss Jail Goodbye”) at the UCLA med center recently raises the issue of who bails out UC if the governor’s tax extensions-resumptions don’t pass. Students, apparently, will be the answer: UC tuition might jump 32% if tax proposal fails, official says UC President Mark G. Yudof tells regents that this fall’s 8% tuition increase may be dwarfed by an additional 32% midyear hike if Gov. Jerry Brown’s plan for tax extensions is not approved. By Larry Gordon, Los Angeles Times May 19, 2011 Reporting from San Francisco — University…

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LAO Points to Alternatives to the May Revise

Byuclafaculty

The Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) has prepared its analysis of the governor’s May revise proposal. It believes that recent increases in state income tax receipts are more heavily the result of capital gains than the governor does. In the short term, i.e., through the next fiscal year, the source of the revenue doesn’t much matter. However, the LAO believes that in the outyears (beyond 2011-12), less revenue can be expected than the governor’s projection would suggest. LAO provides a similar analysis of the corporate profits tax; it has a less rosy outlook in the outyears than the governor. The LAO…

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No End in Sight (for tuition increases)

Byuclafaculty

UC leaders: Tuition hikes nearly inevitable (excerpt) Matt Krupnick, Contra Costa Times, 5/18/11 The University of California may charge higher tuition each of the next five years even if the state stops cutting its budget, UC leaders said Wednesday. Administrators presented four budget scenarios Wednesday to help the Board of Regents plan future budgets. Under the rosiest scenario — which is unlikely, given the state’s financial crisis — UC would raise tuition 8 percent per year, starting in 2012… Gov. Jerry Brown has proposed $500 million cuts to both the 10-campus UC and 23-campus California State University systems, and the…

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Focusing on the Proposed Hotel/Conference Center

Byuclafaculty

Some background documents regarding the proposed hotel/conference center planned to replace the Faculty Center can be accessed below. There will shortly be focus groups on campus set up on the hotel/conference center issue. If you are part of such a group, or know someone who is, you (or he/she) should be acquainted with the documents below and many others. The Academic Senate website has many pertinent documents, for example. A simple way to track the hotel/conference center issue if you are already on this blog is to type in “faculty center” in the search option and read the resulting entries….

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Wind or Windfall in the State Budget?

Byuclafaculty

There are constant headlines about a state revenue “windfall.” It refers to a projection that this fiscal year, the Dept. of Finance thinks there will be more revenue than it did back in January when Gov. Brown made his original budget proposal. The May revise was discussed in a prior post. It was noted that while more revenue was projected for the current year, it turned out that the general fund, viewed as a checking account, now seems to have been more overdrawn at the start of the fiscal year (July 1, 2010) than was thought in January. On the…

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Video: The Governor’s May Revise News Conference

Byuclafaculty

An earlier post on this blog analyzes the May Revise news conference held by Gov. Brown on May 16. There is video of that news conference on the governor’s website but – at least on my computer – it tended to pause and freeze. The version on the calchannel was even worse and caused a total crash at one point. So below is the video transplanted to YouTube by yours truly which works best. It is divided into 4 parts due to YouTube time limits. Part 2, it might be noted, contains a statement by the governor that he would…