politics

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No Way San Jose

Byuclafaculty

There has been a concern at UC that some future ballot proposition might sweep UC into a statewide public pension change that would affect current employees, contrary to the Regents’ action on pensions last December. The state attorney general, Kamala Harris, recently raised possible objections concerning a San Jose city plan that would affect current employees there. Whether she would challenge a ballot proposition that had similar effects at the state level is unknown. From the San Jose Mercury-News of 6/21/11: San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed’s proposal to declare a fiscal state of emergency and seek a ballot measure to…

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No Pay Today: State Budget Update

Byuclafaculty

As noted in an update to one of yesterday’s blog entries, state controller John Chiang has ruled that the budget passed by the legislature (but vetoed by the governor), was not “balanced.” However, he took a relatively narrow view of what the imbalance was, which would open the door to some other budget deal that might have funny elements in it. Chiang’s ruling means legislators don’t get paid. So far, no one has filed a legal challenge to his ruling. There is a report that the governor has a plan for passing a budget by majority vote, i.e., without Republican…

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Straws in the Fiscal Winds: State and Campus

Byuclafaculty

Various straws in the state and UCLA budgetary winds today. The controversy over whether legislators will get paid after having passed a budget by the constitutional deadline which was then vetoed remains. Politicos are waiting state controller John Chiang’s decision on whether the vetoed budget was “balance” by some definition. Whatever he decides seems likely to be litigated. No one who has been state controller has ever said that his/her sole political ambition since age 4 has been to be state controller. I would venture to say that all of them would like to “advance” to some other office eventually….

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UCLA Forecast Chart Tells the Underlying Story

Byuclafaculty

Above you see my favorite chart from the UCLA Anderson Forecast. It appears each quarter in the publication that accompanies the Forecast conference. This version is from the most recent Forecast conference which took place on campus in Ackerman last Wednesday. (My brilliant cellphone photo of the conference on the left reminds us that there is – after all – space on campus to hold big conferences, but that is another story.) What the chart tells us is that California has essentially never recovered from the recession of the early 1990s. The trend line is the Cold War employment growth…

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Radio Interview on UC Budget Cut (in Now-Vetoed Budget)

Byuclafaculty

UC Exec VP for Business Operations Nathan Brostrom was interviewed earlier today by Madeline Brand, KPCC, shortly before the governor vetoed the state budget. Brostrom asserts that the governor could have line-item vetoed the UC cut. It’s not clear that the governor could do that but, in any event, vetoing the entire budget ends the issue for now. Click below for the interview. Note that it is uncertain where we go from here. The governor and the legislative Democrats are now at odds. The state controller, John Chiang, is deciding whether the budget that was passed but vetoed was “balanced”…

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More Cuts for UC Under Simple-Majority Budget

Byuclafaculty

If Republican votes cannot be obtained to put tax extensions on the ballot, Democrats in the legislature are reported to be poised to pass a simple-majority budget that would include more cuts to UC. From the Sacramento Bee website: The proposal… includes the following: – $3.4 billion in deferred payments to K-12 schools, community colleges and the University of California. Schools could maintain programs as long as they borrow to fund them. – $1 billion in taking First 5 funds, a move already under legal challenge. – $1.7 billion by asking redevelopment agencies to contribute money to the state under…

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Some Mental Reservations on the State Budget: Time to Reconsider?

Byuclafaculty

News accounts this morning are full of the budget drama in Sacramento and whether Governor Brown will get the four Republican votes to put tax extensions on the bracket. The accounts use the usual metaphors. Brown wants a budget with “no gimmicks.” Anything else is “smoke and mirrors.” Etc., Etc. However, the reason Brown might now possibly get the needed GOP votes is that Republicans think that if tax extensions are on the ballot, they will be defeated. In that case, Brown will have made pension, spending cap, and regulatory concessions without getting his extensions. Lost in this reporting is…

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Governor Says There Will Be a State Budget Vote This Week But What That Means Is Uncertain

Byuclafaculty

Gov. Brown released a video – see below – in which he says there will be a budget vote this week. As a prior post noted, June 15 (Wednesday) is the generally-neglected constitutional deadline for the legislature to pass a budget. Exactly what a budget vote might mean is uncertain. Pieces of the budget have already been voted. More could be voted without an entire package being passed by June 15. In principle, legislators will not be paid after June 15, not even retroactively, for each day without a budget. But exactly how that will operate in practice is also…

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Invasion of the Body Snatchers (in Wisconsin legislature)

Byuclafaculty

Apparently, a strange race of beings has taken over the Wisconsin legislature. They look like ordinary people but… Plan Would Force U. of Wisconsin to Return $39-Million in U.S. Broadband Grants June 8, 2011, Marc Parry, Chronicle of Higher Ed A budget approved by a legislative committee last week would force the University of Wisconsin to return $39-million in federal grants awarded to expand high-speed Internet access across the state, state education officials said. The plan would also require all University of Wisconsin institutions to withdraw from WiscNet, a nonprofit network cooperative that services the public universities, most of the…

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How the (budget) sausage is being made

Byuclafaculty

You are not supposed to want to know how sausages are made. The making of the state budget sausage – as a prior post noted – is supposed to happen in the legislature by June 15. For any kind of tax extension or tax-related ballot measure, a 2/3 vote is needed which means a few GOP legislators must go along. Public sector unions have been pushing Gov. Brown to abandon the idea of a vote on tax extensions although they have not explained how he is supposed to get a 2/3 vote for his tax extensions. But they have said…