governor

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New Tax Graveyard

Byuclafaculty

The governor and the legislative leaders have been tamping down expectations that the Democrats – with a 2/3 “supermajority” in the legislature would be enacting new taxes.  For one thing, the supermajority is shaky at best.  One Democratic seat in the Senate recently became a GOP seat in a special election.  Some of the Democrats were elected in swing districts under the new top-2 primary system and might not vote with the majority on a tax increase. Today’s Capitol Alert blog of the Sacramento Bee reports: Measures aimed at creating new taxes on Californians were held by the Senate Appropriations…

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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

Byuclafaculty

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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New LAO Report on (More) State Revenues

Byuclafaculty

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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Appy days are here again

Byuclafaculty

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….

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The official response

Byuclafaculty

If you are wondering about the official UC response to the governor’s May Revise budget proposal, here it is:  Patrick Lenz, the University of California system’s vice president for budget and capital resources:   With this proposal, the governor is continuing his multi-year funding commitment to increase the University of California by 5 percent in the 2013-14 fiscal year and then 5 percent, 4 percent, and 4 percent in the subsequent fiscal years. In addition, the administration is continuing its support for UC restructuring debt to achieve $80 million in annual savings. Those savings will provide not only the additional…

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A Quick Review of the May Revise and an Inadvertent Lesson on Online Education

Byuclafaculty

As per our previous post this morning, the governor’s May Revise budget was released today in a presentation by the governor and his finance director.  But before we get to the numbers and issues relating to UC’s budget, yours truly cannot resist the following observation: There is nothing per se about online education in the latest summary document that accompanies the May Revise.  (More budget details will come out in the days to come.)  However, the online transmission of the news conference was a fiasco of jerky images, frozen audio, and total breaks in the transmission.  The effort in real…

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Governor’s May Revise (State Budget) Unveiling at 10 AM Today

Byuclafaculty

You can see it live-streamed at 10 AM at www.calchannel.com.  As noted in prior posts, bits and pieces have been leaking out as is traditional.  From the UC perspective, the elements to watch are contingent allocations based on performance goals and earmarks such as for online education. Another tradition is advance interpretation in the news media:http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2013/05/jerry-brown-to-propose-1-billion-for-common-core-education-standards.html http://www.sacbee.com/2013/05/14/5417832/browns-revised-budget-has-more.html http://www.californiascapitol.com/2013/05/where-has-all-the-surplus-gone-gone-to-classrooms-everywhere/ http://www.news10.net/rss/article/244970/525/5-key-things-worth-watching-in-Browns-revised-budget http://www.edsource.org/today/2013/school-funding-will-be-focus-source-of-contention-of-browns-revised-budget/31977 

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May Revise Tomorrow

Byuclafaculty

Word has it that the governor will release his “May Revise” proposal for the state budget tomorrow (on Tuesday).  It is a tradition that the governor presents a revision of his constitutionally-mandated January state budget proposal about this time of the year.  The revised budget typically reflects both updated economic, revenue, and expenditure information and a political reading of what is feasible.  Tradition also has it that outlines of the budget are leaked in advance.  The leaks, as far as UC is concerned, is that there will be a contingent budget for UC linked to performance of various goals.  Note…

We have a winner!

Byuclafaculty

Jerry’s Mom Earlier today – Mothers’ Day – we had a contest to identify the woman in the photo.  She was the mother of someone famous, but the question was who she was.  Our winner correctly identified her as Bernice Brown, mother of Governor Jerry Brown and wife of former Governor Pat Brown. For information on Bernice Brown, go to: http://firstladies.library.ca.gov/30-brown.html And since we promised acclaim on this blog to the person who identified the woman in the photo, click below for the appropriate fanfare:

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Some things are so obvious they need to be said

Byuclafaculty

UC faculty leader warns of more exits if research loses ground The systemwide leader of the University of California’s faculty said Friday that he hoped that the announced move of prominent neuroscience researchers from UCLA to USC reminds government leaders in Sacramento of the importance of research at UC. Robert Powell, chairman of the system Academic Senate, said that much of recent proposed legislation and rules from state lawmakers and the governor stress undergraduate graduation rates, online education and upping teaching loads without recognizing UC’s strong international role in scientific and academic research. While it is important to improve undergraduate…