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Cash Management

Byuclafaculty

With a budget now enacted, the state controller is authorized to make payments that have been held up. The problem is that the budget enactment did not create more cash. Indeed, not having a budget conserved cash precisely because payments were not being made. Excerpts from the website of controller John Chiang: How bad is the State’s cash flow? Unfortunately, the more than three-month long stalemate over a spending plan resulted in the State being unable to make more than $8.3 billion in payments to small businesses, community clinics, and local governments since July 1. After accounting for September’s cash…

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Duelling PEB Reports

Byuclafaculty

When the Post-Employment Benefits (PEB) Task Force finished its deliberations, it published a majority and minority report. See earlier postings. UCOP responded to the dissenting report with a rebuttal. The dissenters replied to that response. In turn, UCOP responded to that response. Depending on when you looked at the UCOP webpage on PEB, you may not have seen the full back and forth. So here is the menu as of today: The full report of August 30 is at http://universityofcalifornia.edu/sites/ucrpfuture/files/2010/08/peb_finalreport_082710.pdfThe minority dissenting report of August 30 is http://universityofcalifornia.edu/sites/ucrpfuture/uncategorized/files/2010/08/peb_dissenting_082510.pdf The UCOP response to the dissent of Sept. 14 is at http://universityofcalifornia.edu/sites/ucrpfuture/files/2010/09/peb_dissenting_response_0910.pdf…

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Upcoming Events of Interest

Byuclafaculty

The final gubernatorial debate between Jerry Brown and Meg Whitman will take place on Tuesday, Oct. 12, 6:30 PM. Channel 4 – KNBC – will carry it. UPDATE: Local public radio stations as of the morning of the debate are not listing on their websites whether or not they will carry the debate. KQED radio in San Francisco will carry the audio and its programs are streamed on line at http://www.kqed.org/radio/listen/ FURTHER UPDATE: Apparently KCRW 89.9 will carry it. There will be a campus-level forum on the Post-Employment Benefits (PEB) Task Force report on Thursday, Oct. 14, Royce Hall. See…

6-Year Graduation Rates at UC

Byuclafaculty

A group called the American Institutes for Research has been receiving publicity for a database on higher ed and, in particular, dropouts from 4-year institutions. The group describes itself as follows: AIR’s purpose is to conduct and apply behavioral and social science research to improve people’s lives and well-being, with a special emphasis on the disadvantaged. Website at http://www.air.org/ Its database includes data on 6-year graduation rates from federal data sources during 2003-2008, i.e., what percentage of incoming freshmen graduate within 6 years. You can find the database at http://collegemeasures.org/ The report goes beyond graduation rates and puts dollar figures…

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Journal Publishers Not Yearning to Be Free

Byuclafaculty

Inside Higher Ed today reports slow going in a project to change professional journal publishing. The project was announced about a year ago by a consortium of universities including UC-Berkeley. In essence the idea was that journals would be free and open to anyone online. Universities would provide the revenue for reviewing, editing, etc. This approach was thought to be less expensive than library subscriptions to journals. From an article from Sept. 2009 at http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/09/15/open “What the model does long term is change the way universities support journal publishing from having them pay fees to publishers for access to the…

Strong funding for UC Merced

Byuclafaculty

From the Merced Sun-Star, Saturday, Oct. 09, 2010 Strong funding for UC Merced included in state budget UC Merced has praised the state for allotting more than $100 million to support the school. The funding entails $81 million for construction of the Science and Engineering II building, $10 million in base funding for operations, $6.5 million for continued site development and infrastructure at UC Merced and $5 million in supplemental operating funds, according to UC Merced officials. “We are very pleased that the approved state budget reflects the critical importance of higher education to the people of California,” said UC…

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Chop, Chop: The Budget With the Governor’s Line-Item Vetoes (Including a UC Pension-Related Veto)

Byuclafaculty

The previous post on this blog gave the LAO’s description of the newly-passed state budget. It provided reserve at the end of the current fiscal year that I described as within the range of white noise. The governor has now exercised his line-item vetoes, raising the reserve projected for June 30, 2011 to $1.3 with roughly a billion dollars in vetoes. So for the current year, revenue and transfers remain as in the previous post at $94.2 billion. But expenditures drop by a billion to $86.5 billion, leading to an operating surplus of $7.7 billion. The governor’s budget document is…

LAO’s Initial Explanation of Budget Deal

Byuclafaculty

The Legislative Analyst’s Office has provided a description (not really an evaluation – that will come later) of the budget deal that passed the legislature earlier today. In summary, LAO estimates the General Fund to have been left with a negative reserve of -$6.3 billion at the end of the last fiscal year, i.e., on June 30, 2010. It also estimates that the negative reserve was the result of prior sins because the budget (with all the accounting tricks, etc.) for 2009-10 was roughly balanced (revenue = expenditure). The new budget assumes “revenues and transfers” of $94.2 billion and expenditures…