UC budget crisis

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PPIC Poll on Public Higher Ed in California

Byuclafaculty

The charts above come from a poll taken by the Public Policy Institute of California available at: http://www.ppic.org/content/pubs/survey/S_1111MBS.pdf [Click on the table above to enlarge it or go to the report itself.] You can interpret the charts as you like. As the saying goes, an optimist is someone who thinks we are in the best of all possible worlds – and a pessimist is also someone who thinks we are in the best of all possible worlds.

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It Sure Looks Like the Trigger Is Going to be Pulled

Byuclafaculty

There is an advance report from the Sacramento Bee that the Legislative Analyst later today will be announcing that projections of revenue will fall sufficiently short of assumptions to fire the budget trigger – which further chops the UC budget this year. By itself, just the LAO projection does not fire the trigger but it is part of the mechanism. The LAO report is not yet posted. From the Bee: California would impose $2 billion in mid-year “trigger” cuts next month, mostly through K-12 school reductions, under a new revenue forecast issued this morning by the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office……

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Controller Warns of Budget Trigger

Byuclafaculty

State Controller John Chiang today released his cash statement for the first 4 months of fiscal year 2011-12. Tax revenue is falling short of projections by about $1.5 billion. He warned that weak revenue inflows are raising the likelihood that the budget trigger will fire, further cutting UC’s budget. See http://sco.ca.gov/Files-ARD/CASH/fy1112_oct.pdf and http://sco.ca.gov/Files-EO/11-11summary.pdf

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CSU Offers Negotiating 101: Maybe UC Should Enroll

Byuclafaculty

President Yudof gave assurance in advance of the event that if the legislative “trigger” is pulled – and cuts are therefore made in the UC budget – there won’t be a midyear tuition increase. Some might see this assurance as an invitation to be shot. President Yudof is apparently going to offer the Regents a budget plan for next year with the assurance that if the state grants it as proposed, there will be no tuition increase next year. He does not say what will happen to tuition if the budget plan (and the increase contained in it relative to…

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So Glad the UC Budget Will Be in Good Hands

Byuclafaculty

California legislators head to Maui for retreat funded by special interests The LA Times headline says it all. But you can read it at http://www.latimes.com/news/local/politics/la-me-legislature-maui-20111109,0,4657777.story As our earlier post noted, President Yudof will be submitting his budget for 2012-13 to the Regents next week. In an article in the Daily Bruin, UC VP Patrick Lenz notes that the last time the legislature enacted the UC budget as requested was in 2000-01 (peak of the dot-com boom and the revenue therefrom). See http://www.dailybruin.com/index.php/article/2011/11/uc_president_mark_yudof_proposes_budget_plan_to_increase_university_funding_from_the_state_although_

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UC Budget Proposal for 2012-13 Readied for Regents

Byuclafaculty

President Yudof’s UC budget proposal for 2012-13, scheduled for discussion at the Regents on Nov. 17, is now posted. The key links are http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/regents/regmeet/nov11/f12.pdf and http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/regents/regmeet/nov11/f11attach.pdf The proposal includes a request for increased “core” funding by 8%. Notably included is a contribution to the UC pension – which the state has not been doing since contributions resumed. There appears to be an arbitrary request for one fourth of the employer contribution ($87.6 million). See the last page of the second link. Why just one fourth is requested is not clear. Since this seems to be public pension year, given the…

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The Governor is the Lone Ranger on the Trigger

Byuclafaculty

The Sacramento Bee today carries a story about the budget for next year, the trigger based on this year’s revenues, etc. It refers to various projections made by the governor and others which unfortunately continue the standard state (and local) practice of mixing up stocks and flows and using words such as “deficit” outside the common meaning. First, it talks about a projected “deficit” for next year of around $3 billion. Anyone is free to project. But what was adopted last June was a budget for 2011-12. Anything beyond that is at most a “workload” projection. And, if you mean…

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Occupy UC?

Byuclafaculty

UC, CSU campuses to be site of economic-based protests Sacramento Bee, 11/5/11, Laurel Rosenhall The wave of anger at banks that has swept the country with the recent Occupy movement is coming to California college campuses next week. …The group sent letters Friday to University of California regents and trustees of the California State University, asking them to sign a pledge to support five items: increasing income taxes on California’s wealthiest; changing Proposition 13 so that corporate property taxes could rise; enacting a federal sales tax on large-scale financial transactions; reducing underwater mortgage debt; and reversing tuition increases, layoffs, and…

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And don’t forget the trigger

Byuclafaculty

Just a reminder that we still have the budget trigger – enacted by the legislature – aimed at UC among others. (If revenues don’t match certain projections, additional budget cuts are imposed.) Here is what state controller John Chiang had to say about it: …The Democratic controller credited the “trigger” cuts for adding certainty to the state budget in unpredictable times, noting that credit rating agencies have looked favorably on that mechanism. But he knows many Democratic lawmakers, who agreed to triggers only at Brown’s urging, don’t feel the same way. “As I share with a few legislators when I…

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So far, money from we-know-not-where has not appeared in state budget

Byuclafaculty

As readers of this blog will know, UC’s budget is still threatened by a possible pulling of a budget “trigger” if forecast revenues do not arrive as anticipated. What the legislature did when it enacted this fiscal year’s budget was to assume incremental revenue – but not raise taxes (or prevent the end of temporary taxes) to generate that additional revenue. Having made the assumption, it could then pass the budget by simple majority vote, i.e., without the 2/3 vote that a tax increase or extension would have required which would have entailed Republican votes. All budgets are based on…