News

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    UC (& UCLA) hospital 2-day strike to go ahead this morning with court-orded exceptions

    Byadmin

    A Sacramento judge Monday refused to stop a strike today by thousands of employees at…  UC hospitals – but ordered a limited number of critical care employees to stay on the job.  The union for nearly 13,000 workers, including nursing assistants, pharmacists, medical technicians, operating room scrubs and other health care workers, was to begin a two-day strike at 4 a.m. today (Tuesday, May 21). The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees announced the walkout of workers at the UC Davis Health System and University of California hospitals in Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego and Irvine. The…

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    Pension Promises and the UC Budget

    Byadmin

    One of the issues facing UC is pension liabilities.  As we have noted in prior posts, although it may seem paradoxical, liability for the pension is a young person’s issue.  Old folks tend to worry about whether they will get their promised UC pension when the issue is raised.  However, the actual issue is that because they and everyone else will get what is promised, the UC budget going forward has to meet the promise in future years.  Dollars that will go to the pension won’t go to something else. Although you may read about this or that jurisdiction that…

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    The Complete Regents Meeting for Your Listening Enjoyment AND a Note About the Governor’s Legitimate Question and the Absurd UC Response

    Byadmin

    We have given you sections of last week’s Regents meeting in various postings.  And we have noted that the archiving policy of the Regents is a problem.  According to the Regents website, “Video files for past open session meetings of The University of California Regents and its Committees are available for one year after the dates of the meetings.”  So the files apparently vanish.  Prior to 2013, the Regents provided no archiving at all, just a live stream of the audio.  We would then request the audio files and archive them elsewhere.  Since it appears that files will eventually vanish,…

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    Something that didn’t happen

    Byadmin

    Our prior post noted that the LA Times today carries a story about a deal that did occur – albeit not to the benefit of UCLA.  The Times also carries a story about a deal that did not happen, a possible purchase by UCLA of St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica:http://www.latimes.com/business/money/la-fi-mo-st-johns-hospital-20130517,0,3436718.story An earlier post on this blog about this deal that didn’t happen (when it was still a possibility) is at:http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2013/03/hospital-takeover.html UPDATE: See also:http://bhcourier.com/open-letter-communities-santa-monica-west-los-angeles-2/2013/05/17

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    Brain Drain Story

    Byadmin

    The LA Times today has a behind-the-scenes story of the recruitment by USC of the neurology lab entourage: …Some colleagues in Westwood were aware that Toga and Thompson “were having conversations” with USC but didn’t know the specifics, said John Mazziotta, chairman of UCLA’s neurology department and executive vice dean of the medical school. The Bruins would have tried to respond if given a chance, he said: “We always try to keep our top faculty.” …Full story at http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-usc-ucla-recruit-20130518,0,6963020,full.story All in all, seems like someone was not fully alert:[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aq9hQDzQFvo?feature=player_detailpage]

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    New LAO Report on (More) State Revenues

    Byadmin

    The Legislative Analyst’s Office has released a commentary on the governor’s May Revise budget proposal.  It’s headline feature is that LAO expects higher revenues than the governor projects.  That extra money is not pure gravy since it interacts with the Prop 98 formulas for K-14.  Nonetheless, the report will become part of the legislative process and negotiations which will go on between the governor and legislature.  The governor wants to be cautious and his way of doing it is to tilt toward less optimistic revenue projections.  LAO has a lot of cautionary notes in its report – things that could…

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    Possible Two-Day UC Hospital Strike Next Week

    Byadmin

    From the LA Times today: Facing a possible two-day strike next week by patient care and technical workers, the five large University of California medical centers are starting to cancel elective surgeries that had been scheduled as soon as Monday, officials said. Emergency care will not be shut and patients already in the five hospitals across the state will continue to receive care. But many elective procedures will delayed until after the potential strike, set for Tuesday and Wednesday… At UCLA’s hospitals in Westwood and Santa Monica, …administrators are planning to hire 600 replacement workers through agencies and are preparing…

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    Need for Improvement

    Byadmin

    From the Sacramento Bee‘s Capitol Alert blog: Not a single member of the California Legislature earned an A from the tough graders at the University of California Student Association, who released their first-ever legislative scorecard at the regents meeting in Sacramento Wednesday. Not Sen. Marty Block, a former professor who chairs the Senate Education Committee. Not even Sen. Leland Yee, who holds a doctorate in psychology and takes every possible opportunity to publicly bash university management. “As students we get a lot of grades, and we’re turning the table on legislators,” said Justin Chung, a grad student at UC Irvine……

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    Appy days are here again

    Byadmin

    From an article in today’s Sacramento Bee describing Governor Brown’s visit to the Regents yesterday afternoon: …UC President Mark Yudof said many factors influence the time it takes for students to graduate, including how much pressure their parents put on them, how much they have to work to afford tuition and how complex the requirements are for their majors of study. Brown suggested that perhaps technology – “a little app,” he said – could help students by alerting them of their progress toward graduation… Source: http://www.sacbee.com/2013/05/16/5424543/uc-regents-cool-to-gov-browns.html Clearly, an app’t suggestion from the governor with no l’apps of his sound judgment….