UC budget crisis

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State Budget Deal Retains Additional Cut to UC and May Trigger More Cuts

Byuclafaculty

An earlier post today included an update reporting that the legislative Democrats have reached a deal with Gov. Brown on the state budget that can be passed by majority vote (without Republican votes) because no new taxes or extensions are involved. The deal is leaking out but contains the additional $150 million in cuts to higher ed that was in the budget Brown vetoed. It also has a trigger feature so that if assumed revenue does not appear, there will be midyear cuts including more to UC. Here is a summary: Democratic aides provided details this afternoon on the handshake…

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UC-Riverside Wants $$$s for New Med School

Byuclafaculty

Olds urges UCR lobbying group to help gain accreditation (excerpt) LORA HINES, Riverside Press-Enterprise, 6/22/11 The dean of UC Riverside’s proposed medical school on Wednesday appeared before university supporters and urged them to contact Sacramento lawmakers to secure ongoing state funding needed to accredit the school. Dr. G. Richard Olds asked members of the Citizens University Committee, a UCR lobbying group, for assistance in securing state money. Earlier this month, university officials were informed by an accreditation panel that the medical school would not be accredited because the state had not committed to ongoing funding. The medical school needs a…

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No One Actually Reads or Listens: More on the State Budget

Byuclafaculty

At the moment, Controller John Chiang is being praised for blocking legislators from being paid because they did not produce a “balanced” budget by the June 15th constitutional deadline. But actually what he said is that the legislature made some mistakes in drafting up their budget so that the assumed “revenues” do not add up to assumed “expenditures.” (The fact that the governor vetoed the budget was not relevant to his decision.) The controller has been heralded on Fox News on the right (see http://video.foxbusiness.com/v/1013691636001/california-withholds-legislatures-pay/) and just about everywhere else along the political spectrum. If you actually watch the Fox…

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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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State Budget (Whenever There Is One) to Ban Funding UC Athletics

Byuclafaculty

The story below somehow got away yours truly on Sunday. But Inside Higher Ed alerted me so here it is belatedly: Budget plan bans taxpayer funds for UC athletics (Excerpt) Nanette Asimov, San Francisco Chronicle, June 19, 2011 With a few words in the new state budget, lawmakers will ban spending taxpayer money on intercollegiate athletics – and end a controversy that started when a sharp-eyed UC Berkeley professor found that university officials had changed details of the law. University of California officials acknowledge asking the state to remove athletics from the list of programs required to be “self-supporting and…

Whoops: Non-Californians at UC get summer subsidy

Byuclafaculty

A taxpayer subsidy that out-of-state students enrolled in the University of California system have been receiving for years is under scrutiny as the schools search for extra revenue. During the regular school year, nonresidents pay up to three times as much as students from California, bringing the universities a few hundred million dollars. But partly due to measures taken to boost summer enrollment, they are spared from paying higher fees for summer classes… Unlike the UC campuses, the California State University system doesn’t give nonresidents a break. They pay an extra $372 per unit year-round. Full article at: http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2011/06/university-of-california-nonresident-summer-school.html

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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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At Last, Something Is Heard

Byuclafaculty

We at this blog have been waiting for UCOP and the Regents to get involved in the state budget. It’s late in the game – a simple-majority budget was passed last night that (as previously noted on this blog) chops another $150 million from UC. But at last, we are hearing from UC’s powers-that-be. Gov. Brown could veto the budget. If he signs it, he could cut spending in particular lines but can’t raise spending. However, other bills can be enacted that modify the budget. In any case, the UCOP press release reproduced below in italics could be the start…

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Understatement of the Week

Byuclafaculty

See the prior post on the simple-majority budget and the further cuts it includes for UC. The Democratic plan …calls for $150 million reductions each to the University of California and California State University systems. UC Office of the President spokesman Steve Montiel responded as follows: “We are assessing the latest proposal from the state Senate, and it’s too soon to say with certainty what the impact would be. But there’s no question that additional cuts would not be good news for UC and the Californians it serves. The university already has taken steps to absorb a $500 million cut,…