governor

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And still more on the pension cabalistas…

Byuclafaculty

From Salon.com:  [excerpt]  10-23-13 Less than a year ago, the Wall Street Journal alerted its national readership to what was happening in the tiny state of Rhode Island. In a story headlined “Small State Gets Big Pension Push,” the paper noted that the state’s “rollback of public-employee retirement benefits has turned (it) into a national battleground over pensions.” With the help of billionaire former Enron trader John Arnold and his partnership with the Pew Charitable Trusts, conservative ideologues and Wall Street profiteers who engineered Rhode Island’s big pension cuts were looking to export those “reforms” to other states. Now, after…

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State Budget Update

Byuclafaculty

The chart title from the latest state controller’s cash report is fine.  But the bars may be confusing.  The first bar on the left tells you that revenue fell short of the budget forecast in July by $306.4 million.  July is the first month of the fiscal year.  The middle bar, although labeled August, actually is the July-August combination.  And the September bar is the result for the first quarter of the fiscal year, July+August+September.  It tells you that that despite an initial lag in revenues, the first quarter came in more or less as forecast. There is a bit…

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Recalling the Recall

Byuclafaculty

It’s all yours, Arnold. We are getting to the 10th anniversary of the recall of Gov. Gray Davis and his replacement by Arnold Schwarzenegger.  One of the events that followed was a UC “compact” with the new governor that was worthless; as soon as the state had budgetary problems, the compact disappeared.  A key problem was that the governor doesn’t appropriate funds; the legislature does.  Nonetheless, there were photo ops: Compact buddies For nostalgia buffs, here is a video history of the recall in three parts:[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pt7O-yyzFJs?feature=player_detailpage] [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcUZZQ11u6w?feature=player_detailpage] [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6eSlO46FnA?feature=player_detailpage] Finally, the comic side from Harry Shearer:[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WR6T3JG6R8?feature=player_detailpage]

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Fossils

Byuclafaculty

If you have listened to the public comment sessions at Regents meetings posted on this blog, you will have heard statements from a student group pushing the Regents to divest its pension and other portfolios from “fossil fuels.”  By this demand, the group – which is part of a national movement – appears to mean not just oil-coal-gas producers but also at least some major utilities.  We have noted that there are problems with using other peoples’ money to favor or disfavor particular political/social causes, partly involving the esoteric elements of finance and returns to the portfolio, but also the…

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Now Some Students Can Be His Guest at a Brown Bag Lunch

Byuclafaculty

Be my guest! Or is it a Brown (pause) bag-lunch? In an earlier post on the Regents meeting, we mentioned the new “crowdsourcing” UC fundraising effort.  Now some students can be guests of the governor: University of California regents spent much of Wednesday morning cheering a new fundraising initiative to encourage faculty, students and other people to raise money through their social networks for students who demonstrate financial need.  Gov. Jerry Brown, who sits on the UC board and is attending its meeting in San Francisco, pledged to raise $10,000.  If successful, the Democratic governor promises to “host a ‘brown…

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Listen to First Segment of Afternoon Session of UC Regents: 9-18-2013

Byuclafaculty

Summary: The afternoon session began with a presentation by the new president of the UC Students Assn.  He described a program to find jobs for graduate students whose careers are currently limited by the loose labor market.  He described a program focused on prisons vs. UC, the details of which were not clear.  He favored an oil severance tax and also divestment from fossil fuels.  (Some listeners might find those causes somewhat in conflict; depends on how you look at them.)    Much of the afternoon was then spent on budgetary issues.  Charts were shown indicating the volatility in tuition…

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Listen to the Morning Session of the Regents: 9-18-2013

Byuclafaculty

Summary: After a series of closed meetings, the Regents – including Gov. Jerry Brown – had a public comment session.  A rep from a union of residents complained that UC-irvine was not recognizing their organization.  A student suggested that the Regents should have a Facebook page.  Concerns were expressed about tuition increases.  There were complaints about high out-of-state tuition.  The students who complained the day before that they could not get an appointment with incoming UC president Napolitano reported that they now had an appointment.   There were requests for the Regents to meet in southern California.  A group of students…

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Not Quite Enough

Byuclafaculty

If you are state budget aficionado, you may recall that last June there was a disagreement between Governor Brown and the legislative leaders as to whether to use a conservative forecast for 2013-14 state revenue.  The governor pushed for, and ultimately won, the use of more conservative forecast revenue than the LAO and the legislative leaders wanted to use. We are now two months into the fiscal year and according to the state controller, actual revenue received was below the governor’s estimate by something over $300 million.  In addition, the state is looking at some unexpected spending for such things…

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Five Seats in Search of a Regent

Byuclafaculty

The LA Times is carrying a story about Governor Brown’s seeming reluctance to fill five empty seats on the UC Board of Regents.  Speculation appears in the article about the motive.  A gubernatorial spokesperson says there is no motive.  But there could be an agenda.  The governor has been attending Regents meetings as an ex officio Regent and has noted that he is technically the president of the Board.  He has been pushing for online ed and performance standards.  (He line-item vetoed a mandate for UC he himself had inserted in the latest state budget on the promise that UC…

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Alternative Choices

Byuclafaculty

Yesterday, we ran this photo from a recent Regents meeting with a kind of multiple-choice test for incoming UC President Napolitano on what song was (now former) President Yudof likely NOT thinking of in the scene shown above.  But it has been suggested that he might not have been thinking about songs at all.  It might have been movie scenes.  So we will repeat the basic question modified to be “What movie scene below was President Yudof most likely NOT thinking about?” Selection A Selection B Or maybe he could have been thinking about some more recent films by an…