News

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    No One Actually Reads or Listens: More on the State Budget

    Byadmin

    At the moment, Controller John Chiang is being praised for blocking legislators from being paid because they did not produce a “balanced” budget by the June 15th constitutional deadline. But actually what he said is that the legislature made some mistakes in drafting up their budget so that the assumed “revenues” do not add up to assumed “expenditures.” (The fact that the governor vetoed the budget was not relevant to his decision.) The controller has been heralded on Fox News on the right (see http://video.foxbusiness.com/v/1013691636001/california-withholds-legislatures-pay/) and just about everywhere else along the political spectrum. If you actually watch the Fox…

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    UCLA to Charge Credit Card Fee to Students

    Byadmin

    An earlier blog noted that budget pressures are pushing the University to add fees for things that were not previously charged. From California Watch yesterday comes: UCLA students who use credit cards to pay their university bills better brace themselves: The university will start charging a 2.75 percent credit card processing fee this fall. It’s an example of how universities are passing certain costs along to students amid a statewide budget crunch. Administrators say the move allows the university to stop absorbing the cost of processing credit card transactions – fees that credit card companies charge. Transferring that cost to…

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    No Way San Jose

    Byadmin

    There has been a concern at UC that some future ballot proposition might sweep UC into a statewide public pension change that would affect current employees, contrary to the Regents’ action on pensions last December. The state attorney general, Kamala Harris, recently raised possible objections concerning a San Jose city plan that would affect current employees there. Whether she would challenge a ballot proposition that had similar effects at the state level is unknown. From the San Jose Mercury-News of 6/21/11: San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed’s proposal to declare a fiscal state of emergency and seek a ballot measure to…

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    No Pay Today: State Budget Update

    Byadmin

    As noted in an update to one of yesterday’s blog entries, state controller John Chiang has ruled that the budget passed by the legislature (but vetoed by the governor), was not “balanced.” However, he took a relatively narrow view of what the imbalance was, which would open the door to some other budget deal that might have funny elements in it. Chiang’s ruling means legislators don’t get paid. So far, no one has filed a legal challenge to his ruling. There is a report that the governor has a plan for passing a budget by majority vote, i.e., without Republican…

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    Faculty Center Election Results

    Byadmin

    The Faculty Center just emailed the results of its recent election. If you did not receive the email, the results are listed below, along with the campaign statements of the winning candidates. These are the individuals that will have to deal with the UCLA administration with regard to the hotel/conference center issue. The Election Committee has completed the task of counting the ballots and the following candidates have been elected to served on the 2011-12 Faculty Center Board of Governors President-elect: Joseph NagyTreasurer: Lawrence Kruger Members-at-large: Charles Berst, Laura Lake, R. Michael Rich Candidate Statements:President-electJoseph Nagy, Professor of English I’ve…

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    State Budget (Whenever There Is One) to Ban Funding UC Athletics

    Byadmin

    The story below somehow got away yours truly on Sunday. But Inside Higher Ed alerted me so here it is belatedly: Budget plan bans taxpayer funds for UC athletics (Excerpt) Nanette Asimov, San Francisco Chronicle, June 19, 2011 With a few words in the new state budget, lawmakers will ban spending taxpayer money on intercollegiate athletics – and end a controversy that started when a sharp-eyed UC Berkeley professor found that university officials had changed details of the law. University of California officials acknowledge asking the state to remove athletics from the list of programs required to be “self-supporting and…

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    Straws in the Fiscal Winds: State and Campus

    Byadmin

    Various straws in the state and UCLA budgetary winds today. The controversy over whether legislators will get paid after having passed a budget by the constitutional deadline which was then vetoed remains. Politicos are waiting state controller John Chiang’s decision on whether the vetoed budget was “balance” by some definition. Whatever he decides seems likely to be litigated. No one who has been state controller has ever said that his/her sole political ambition since age 4 has been to be state controller. I would venture to say that all of them would like to “advance” to some other office eventually….

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    Higher Summer Tuition Possible for Out-of-State Students or Maybe Everyone

    Byadmin

    The oddity that for summer session UC charges out-of-state students that same tuition as in-staters that was noted in a prior post on this blog may end. Alternatively, UC summer tuition may be raised for everyone. Excerpt from the Sacramento Bee website: A taxpayer subsidy that out-of-state students have been receiving for years is under scrutiny as the University of California system searches for extra revenue. …But partly due to measures taken to boost enrollment, (out-of-staters) don’t pay higher fees for summer classes… A decade ago, the UC system moved from a self-supported summer quarter to one funded by the…