News

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Tax Initiative War Shaping Up Could Hurt UC

Byuclafaculty

There are three tax measures on the November ballot.  Prop 30 – the governor’s tax initiative – is a temporary increase in income taxes and sales taxes.  If it doesn’t pass, there will be trigger cuts including a $250 million cut to UC.  See prior blog posts for info including the Regents’ likely endorsement of Prop 30.  The tax proposition most in competition with Prop 30 is Prop 38 sponsored by Molly Munger.  Earlier in the game, the governor tried to make a deal with Munger so that her initiative would not appear.  That attempt failed.  Now it is being…

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LA Councilman Cautions UCLA on Hotel Tax Liability

Byuclafaculty

In prior blog posts, we have noted that UCLA’s proposed hotel/conference center depends on filling its 250 rooms for financial success.  But it can’t take commercial business and be tax-exempt or depend on tax-exempt financing.  We also noted that other related UCLA facilities’ policies with regard to taking in guests tax-free could be at risk if there is scrutiny of what is planned for the hotel.  LA Councilman Paul Koretz has notified the Regents of UCLA’s potential tax problems with the City and the issue of a public tax-free hotel competing with private tax-paying hotels.  He points to what seems…

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Chancellor Block Among Signatories to Anti-Sequestration Letter

Byuclafaculty

California has its budget trigger cuts about which we have written on this blog.  At the federal level, you will be hearing more as time goes by about “sequestration,” a kind of trigger cut mechanism Congress created to give it an incentive to enact a “grand bargain” on federal spending and the federal deficit.  Basically, if no such bargain is reached, massive defense and non-defense cuts go into effect on January 2.  The idea was that the thought of such cuts would be so frightful that Congress would concoct a grand bargain instead.  It hasn’t worked so far.  (But these…

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Doubt

Byuclafaculty

One of the routine things the Regents do when they meet is approval of the minutes.  As they reconsider the UCLA hotel/conference center proposal, they will have the benefits of minutes from their March 28th meeting at which they refused to endorse the project. Of course, they could instead just listen to their meeting on this blog where the audio is preserved.  But seeing it in print is also instructive.  All of the doubts are there from the tax issues to the why-don’t-you-just-buy-a-hotel questions.  Since the new proposal is much the same as the old (see our earlier blog post),…

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A One-Sided Deal?

Byuclafaculty

At their July meeting, the Regents are likely to endorse the governor’s tax initiative in exchange for certain promises from “senior” people in the governor’s office.  Specifically, a four-year compact with UC is on offer assuming that the initiative passes in November.Below the relevant parts of the deal are described, taken from a document on the Regents’ agenda.  Note that a) the compact is unenforceable and we had a bad experience with a supposed compact with the previous governor and b) the legislature is seemingly not involved even though the legislature is where budgets are enacted.Although the deal encompasses a…

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Final Nail in Coffin for November Pension Ballot Proposition

Byuclafaculty

At one time, Gov. Brown was insisting that there should be ballot proposition in November limiting public pensions.  As readers of this blog will know, the governor has a plan for public pensions that would override the changes the Regents enacted for the UC pension system in 2010. The time has long passed for an initiative on pensions to make it to the November ballot.  In theory, the legislature could put something on pensions on the ballot despite any time limits.  But in fact legislative Dems don’t like the governor’s plan and would be unlikely to go along with the…

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Post Mortem: What Happened Last Fiscal Year in State General Fund Cash Flows?

Byuclafaculty

Readers of this blog and state budget aficionados will recall that in June 2011, the legislature assumed $4 billion in a kind of extra phantom revenue that was unallocated among the various taxes the state was projected to collect.  Essentially, the legislature and governor assumed that a windfall would arise somewhere, but no one could say precisely where.  Nonetheless, that assumption allowed passage of a budget by a simple majority vote that was ostensibly “balanced” by some definition.   Not surprisingly, now that the state controller has released the cash flows for full fiscal year 2011-12 (which ended June 30,…

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Numbers Game Mainly Over for November Ballot Propositions

Byuclafaculty

The legislature and Governor Brown succeeded in getting the governor’s tax initiative at the top of the ballot (as Prop 30).  There is still some litigation on the numbering issue going on but below is the likely listing you will see in November: Prop 30 – Gov. Jerry Brown’s tax increase planProp 31 – State budget process changesProp 32 – Ban on payroll deductions for political contributions; ban on contributions to candidates from unions and corporationsProp 33 – Auto insurance rates based on driver’s history of coverageProp 34 – Death penalty repealProp 35 – Increased penalties for human traffickingProp 36…

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The Hotel: It’s Twins!

Byuclafaculty

UCLA’s Plan C for the hotel/conference center and the July Regents meetings has now been released.  It’s basically Plan B – the version prepared for the March Regents meeting – with different text.  Here’s the thing: As long as it’s a 250-room hotel (or whatever euphemism is used to avoid the word hotel), it has the same flaw.  How are you going to fill up all those rooms without taking commercial business?  And if you start taking questionable business, the local commercial hotel owners have every incentive to call the IRS.  Of course, any occupancy rate can be assumed for…

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Questions Raised About Parking Reimbursement for Proposed UCLA Hotel/Conference Center

Byuclafaculty

The proposed UCLA hotel/conference center would involve demolition and removal of the parking spaces of parking structure #6 (shown at left).  UCLA policy is to reimburse the parking service for such demolitions.  In the UCLA case, however, the planned reimbursement seems over $10 million less than policy would require.  Parking expert Prof. Donald Shoup – author of the acclaimed book “The High Cost of Free Parking” – examined the planned reimbursement and has questioned the proposed reimbursement on behalf of the UCLA Faculty Welfare Committee, a committee of the campus Academic Senate. The Faculty Welfare Committee’s minutes for the June…