News

| | | | |

The Odd Brown/GOP Pension Initiative

Byuclafaculty

Gov. Brown has proposed a pension revision affecting all state and local employees in California.  It would override UC’s changes in its pension system made by the Regents.  The governor’s plan is a hybrid of defined benefit and defined contribution with a pension cap of 75% of salary for new hires.  Brown wants the legislature to put his plan on the ballot but the legislature’s Democratic majority instead is studying alternatives. Legislative Republicans, however, have endorsed the governor’s plan and filed an initiative to put it on the ballot.  Unclear at this time is whether they will spend the $1-$2…

|

UC-Berkeley’s explosive call for more campus autonomy

Byuclafaculty

You probably saw the article in today’s LA Times about a report from UC-Berkeley calling for more campus autonomy within UC.   The Times article is at: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-0424-uc-20120424,0,4754981.story The Berkeley report is at: http://cshe.berkeley.edu/publications/docs/ROPS.Birgeneau%20et%20al.UC%20Gov.4.23.2012.pdf ABSTRACT The University of California (UC) needs to respond to the fundamental and ongoing changes that are occurring around it if it is to remain financially sustainable, accessible, and academically excellent. As the campuses that make up UC have matured in the past 50 years they have, rightly, developed unique strengths and challenges.  The uniqueness of individual campuses has been a natural response to the increasing…

| | | | | | | | | | |

Listen to Remaining Audio of Regents Meeting of March 29, 2012

Byuclafaculty

A previous post on this blog noted that a defective file had been received for the third day session of the Regents after the Public Comments period.  Only part of that session was posted as a result, although it did include the decision officially to withdraw implementation of an exemption from the IRS pension cap.  The complete recording has now been received.  It includes the portion previous posted plus discussion of private budgetary support and fund raising, political advocacy including a request by students to support the governor’s tax initiative scheduled for the November ballot.  There was also discussion of…

| | | | |

LA Times is Yes and No on Legislation to Lower Tuition

Byuclafaculty

The LA Times today is unhappy with proposed legislation that would change corporate taxes and raise money for lowering public higher ed tuition. (Excerpt) …SB 1500 and 1501, by Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez (D-Los Angeles) would …eliminat(e) a tax loophole for businesses and us(e) the resulting revenue to provide large scholarships to middle-class students in the state’s public colleges and universities, (and) reduc(e) their tuition costs by two-thirds… We can think of more pressing needs than tuition relief for families earning between $80,000 and $150,000, and no doubt so can Pérez. A properly funded welfare-to-work program, for example, or…

|

Westwood Problems and the Hotel: An Explainer

Byuclafaculty

Westwood in the past seemed a more prosperous place than at present.  Above we see Bullocks-Westwood Department Store in the early 1950s (based on the cars depicted) and an ad featuring Bullocks-Westwood in the 1930s.  (The store was rebuilt between the two photos.)  Below we see the same location, now home of a Ralphs supermarket and a Best Buy.  There used to be a drug store also at that location but it closed.  Now it has been announced that the Best Buy will also close. If you walk up Westwood Boulevard from Wilshire towards UCLA, what is notable is the…

|

Not Our Scandal

Byuclafaculty

You may have noticed the article in today’s LA Times that is circled in the accompanying picture.  There is a long background story involved, but essentially a commission that sets legislators’ salaries cut their pay during the current state budget crisis and eliminated the practice of providing them with a state-owned car.  The car elimination step was supposed to save money but at the state reimbursement rate of 53 cents per mile for use of a private car, apparently the savings have not materialized. The current university reimbursement is 55.5 cents per mile for use of a personal car on…

|

Don’t Do It!

Byuclafaculty

Did you get a message like the one below in your email recently? Fraud.  Don’t click on it.  Delete it. Bruin OnLine is pleased to announce that we have increased size limits with several Bruin OnLine services. We have again increased your email quota to a final size of 1GB. Along with your email quota, message size limits have been increased to 35MB, with a per attachment size limit of 25MB. And finally, we also increased the file size limits of your online file storage. The original file size limit was doubled to now support 10MB files. Kindly log on ucla.edu/increase to…

| |

More Bad Traffic News for UCLA Night Owls

Byuclafaculty

Wilshire Blvd. traffic problems tonight: WILSHIRE BLVD.: Wilshire Bl eastbound 1, 2 lanes closed at Sepulveda Bl tonight, 10pm to 6am. http://t.co/U6bCOXrIWILSHIRE BLVD.: Wilshire Bl westbound 1, 2 lanes closed near Sepulveda Bl tonight, 10pm to 6am. http://t.co/EuOYUVn2 WILSHIRE BLVD.: Sepulveda Bl reduced to one lane each direction from Salvation Army facilities to Wilshire Bl tonight, 9pm to 5am. WILSHIRE BLVD.: Westbound I-10 connector to northbound I-405 closed tonight, midnight to 5am. http://t.co/jp1EJHjI WILSHIRE BLVD.: Eastbound I-10 connector to southbound I-405 closed tonight, 10pm to 9am. http://t.co/ZaMgCzdK Source: http://www.metro.net/projects/I-405/

|

A billion here, a billion there…

Byuclafaculty

Everett Dirksen, who was the GOP minority leader in the U.S. Senate in the 1960s, was famous for saying (about the federal budget), “A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you’re talking about real money.” Actually, no one has produced evidence that he really said it.  However, the quote’s relevance today is on the latest data from the state controller on the daily intake of income tax payments – which peak in April for obvious reasons. The daily tracker on the controller’s website which was noted in an earlier post on this blog reports that as of April…

How Low Can You Go (on a state pay cap)?

Byuclafaculty

In an earlier post, we noted a bill in the state legislature that would limit pay of state employees to the salary of the governor, about $174,000.  The bill exempts UC because of its constitutional position.  Nonetheless, should such a bill be passed, it would create difficulties for UC as an outlier.  The bill advanced in committee yesterday. State employees — even university presidents and top medical doctors — should not bring home more than Gov. Jerry Brown, a Senate Committee agreed Wednesday.  “This is a good first step to reining in the outrageous state salaries that Californians keep hearing…