governor

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Vim and Vigor on UC Online Higher Ed

Byuclafaculty

From the Sacramento Bee Capitol Alert blog: Jerry Brown says UC, CSU leaders pledged to pursue online ed ‘vigorously’ Gov. Jerry Brown said today that he vetoed his own budget proposal to earmark $20 million for online education at the University of California and California State University systems only after leaders of those institutions assured him they would pursue online course offerings on their own.“I had an agreement from both the segments that they would carry out online vigorously,” Brown told reporters at an event in Sacramento. “As the leader of both governing boards, I’m actively engaged with both the…

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No Mandate for Online Ed at UC: Let’s Pretend!

Byuclafaculty

Our post last night that the governor line-item vetoed his own $10 million mandate in the new state budget for online courses at UC is correct in a literal sense. But what appears to have happened is that UC – which doesn’t like overt mandates which challenge its constitutional autonomy – agreed that it would spend $10 million on online ed anyway if the governor would just remove the mandate language. From Inside Higher Ed today: …“We’ve made a commitment to provide the $10 million, so it’s not going to affect our plans,” said Steve Montiel, a spokesman for the UC…

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Online Ed Earmarked Money Line-Item Vetoed

Byuclafaculty

Michael Meranze, in commenting on the previous post, noted that among the items vetoed by the governor was language that earmarked $10 million at UC for online ed courses.  As readers will know, that earmark was in the budget bill at the request of the governor.  Other quasi-earmarks were also vetoed.  The actual language doesn’t delete dollars from the UC budget – which is why I missed it in the prior post.  It just deletes specifications for how dollars are to be used.  The veto language reads: Item 6440-001-0001 — For support of University of California. I revise this item…

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Budget Signed: Smile But Then Scroll Down

Byuclafaculty

It was generally all smiles and laughter at the state budget signing this morning as the photo above shows.  Contrast that photo with the one below at the 2011 budget signing when the governor had to sign a budget – after getting no GOP support for putting a tax measure on the ballot – that assumed a phantom $4 billion in revenue to make things seem in “balance.”  No smiles there. In any case, there appear to be no surprises for UC in the budget. [But see the updated post above on the governor’s veto of his own online education…

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The State Budget Will Be Signed Tomorrow

Byuclafaculty

From the governor’s office: Governor Brown to Sign State Budget Tomorrow 6-26-2013 SACRAMENTO – Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. will be joined tomorrow by Senate President pro Tem Darrell Steinberg and Assembly Speaker John Pérez as he signs the Budget Act of 2013 (AB 110) in Sacramento.The Governor will also sign ABX1 1 (Pérez) and SBX1 1 (Hernandez-Steinberg), which, in accordance with the federal Affordable Care Act, will help ensure health care coverage for Californians.When: Tomorrow, Thursday, June 27, 2013 at 11:00 a.m.Where: California State Capitol, Governor’s Council Room, Sacramento, CA 95814NOTE: Immediately after the signing event, Department of Finance…

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Budget Enacted – Details & Vetoes to Come

Byuclafaculty

The legislature has passed a state budget which now goes to the governor for signature (he will) and line-item vetoes (some will likely be made).  Thereafter, there should be formal releases of the details by the Dept. of Finance and the Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO). In the meantime, the Sacramento Bee has a summary of highlights.  It includes for higher ed: Proposes an average 5 percent general fund increase to California State University, the University of California and community colleges. No fee increases are envisioned through 2016-17. Authorizes scholarships, beginning in the 2014-15 academic year, for UC and CSU students…

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Gov. Jerry Brown’s university plan is left unfinished in budget

Byuclafaculty

That’s what the headline in the LA Times says.  It goes on to say: [excerpt] The final spending plan does not include the governor’s proposal to tie new money for public universities to specific requirements like improving graduation rates and increasing the number of transfer students from community colleges. Nor will the plan automatically cut funding if tuition is increased. The changes emerged after negotiations with lawmakers and officials at the University of California and California State University, who resisted much of Brown’s proposal. For now, universities will simply be required to track nine different benchmarks… Full story at http://www.latimes.com/news/local/political/la-me-pc-jerry-brown-california-universities-20130612,0,6175034.story…

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Wrong Irk; Right Irk

Byuclafaculty

Op Ed: Yours truly will concede that everyone is entitled to his or her own pet irk.  There is a headline in the Capitol Alert blog of the Sacramento Bee entitled “Cap-and-Trade Loan in Budget Deal Irks Environmentalists.”*  Actually, there is nothing unusual about borrowing by the general fund from other earmarked funds of the state.  The controller routinely does such borrowing when the general fund is short of cash – which was the situation much of the time during the last few years.  What is the real irk here is that as part of the budget that looks likely…

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Deal Reportedly Reached on the State Budget Between Legislature and Governor

Byuclafaculty

From the governor’s website: Governor Brown Issues Statement on Budget 6-10-2013: SACRAMENTO – Following action from the Joint Legislative Conference Committee on the Budget this evening, Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. issued the following statement:  “The Legislature is doing their job and doing it well. It looks like California will get another balanced budget and, very importantly, educational funding that recognizes the different needs of California’s students.” Source: http://gov.ca.gov/news.php?id=18087 The Sacramento Bee indicates that a) the deal is based on the governor’s more conservative revenue estimates as compared to the Legislative Analyst’s numbers* and b) there is (some) money for…

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The Three State Budgets

Byuclafaculty

Last Friday, there was a legislative hearing on the current three versions of the state budget for 2013-14.  There is the governor’s “May Revise” proposal and two separate proposals by the state assembly and the state senate.  The two legislative versions rely on a revenue forecast by the Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) which projects higher tax receipts than the governor’s Dept. of Finance (DOF).  However, the two legislative proposals use the extra revenue differently. From the UC perspective, there is no significant direct effect on the operating budget regardless of which budget is enacted.  However, the assembly version provides for…