Category: legislature

Faculty Coalition at Work in Sacramento

fa_logoAs the budget battle grinds on in the state capital, the Council of University of California Faculty Associations (CUCFA) has been advocating on behalf of system faculty. In February, CUCFA weighed in on a proposal to alter UC governance. In a letter to legislators from Joe Kiskis (UC Davis), CUCFA noted

While some actions of the Regents and the UC administration generate criticism with which we concur, we do not believe that the UC governance structure itself is fundamentally flawed. The University’s long term goals of access, affordability, and excellence are well served by an independent, diverse Board of Regents that can represent the perspectives of the citizens of California, promote the beneficial, enduring values of the creation and dissemination of knowledge, and moderate the interaction of a public university with the political process.

The letter advocated a more open process for choosing Regents, the letter noted that a university under legislative control would be overly subject to short-term political pressures that would undermine the university’s mission.

On March 5th, about 150 faculty, staff, and students from across the system participated in a Reclaim California’s Higher Education lobby day at the capital. They visited more than 40 legislators and staff and held a rally outside the capital building.

A calendar of upcoming actions, meetings, and events is available on the Keep California’ Promise website.

California Assembly Speaker John Pérez on the UC Budget, Tuition, Access, and Other Matters

At the January 17, 2013 UC Regents meeting John Pérez spoke about the state budget and other issues. Pérez is an ex officio regent.  A summary follows and there is a link to an audio of his remarks at the bottom of this post:

Summary: UC is unrealistic about increased funding from the state, backfilling of past budget cuts, or predictability for the university.  It is not addressing predictability for students.  UC was good at protecting the neediest students but not so good at protecting the middle class.  There are legislative concerns about graduate and professional school students, not just undergrads.  If UC raises graduate and professional school tuition, the legislature won’t be receptive and will instead ask questions about executive pay.  There should be “no additional harm” to students. Education, including higher ed, is benefiting from Prop 30 under the governor’s budget, unlike other programs.  The legislature ultimately enacts the budget; what the governor issued was a budget proposal.

Pérez spoke about the unfunded liability in the UC pension system.  He seemed unclear about the actual history of the pension contribution “holiday.”  The story is more nuanced than he implied.  The holiday began because UC’s pension was seen as overfunded and the state had a budget crisis (in the early 1990s).  That is, the decision to suspend contributions was based on the notion that UC could not ask a legislature strapped for cash for contributions to an overfunded pension.  Later, the stock market boomed as part of the more specific dot-com boom and the pension became more overfunded despite the lack of contributions.  So, again, there was a decision that even though the state budget crisis had ended, UC could not go the legislature and ask for contributions to an overfunded pension.  In short, there was a political/legislative element to the pension holiday; it was not just some internal decision isolated within UC.

It might also be noted that Pérez did not discuss research in contrast with the governor (who questioned what research quality was, but at least thought research was worth mentioning). 

An audio of Pérez’s remarks is below:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iHyxA0pOWQ?feature=player_detailpage]