UC budget crisis

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Regents to Approve Next Year’s Budget on Nov. 18

Byuclafaculty

The Regents will be approving a budget for 2011-12 at their meeting of Nov. 18, 8:50 AM session. The total UC proposed budget for the coming year will be $22.6 billion. Of that total, $3.5 billion is requested from the state, up from $2.9 billion in the current year. Of the $600 million increase being requested from the state, $172 million is for pension funding. I will leave it to the reader to estimate the probability that the state will cough up what is being requested. You can find the budget document at http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/regents/regmeet/nov10/f9attach2.pdf The figures to which I refer…

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UC Med Schools Poppin’ Out All Over!

Byuclafaculty

The article below deals mainly with cutbacks at an adjunct Palm Desert campus of UC-Riverside. But note the last sentence. Merced ain’t alone in grand plans. Local UCR campus slashes budget by 40 percent: Executive director, five administrators laid off (excerpt) Michelle Mitchell • The Desert Sun • October 30, 2010 Full article at http://www.mydesert.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=201010300321 The executive director of the University of California, Riverside, Palm Desert campus, and five other employees were laid off effective Monday, the school reported Friday. The cutbacks, which represented 40 percent of the graduate center’s budget, should not impact academic programs and were caused by…

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Prop 26 and Its Potential Effect on UC

Byuclafaculty

Proposition 26 on the November ballot would require a 2/3 vote in the legislature for state imposition of various “fees.” It applies a similar restriction to local fees. A 2/3 vote of the electorate would apply to such fees at the local level. At the moment, there is a distinction made between a “tax” (which is subject to a 2/3 vote) and a fee. During budget crises, governments in California have tended to raise fees, which escape the 2/3 requirement, since tax raising is more difficult. Essentially, Prop 26 tightens up the definition of fee, putting more of them under…

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UC-Berkeley Chancellor Cuts Back on Athletics

Byuclafaculty

UC-Berkeley’s chancellor announced cutbacks yesterday in the athletics program, which has been subsidized by the campus. In doing so, he followed UC-Davis in a similar move (which has brought controversy). Excerpt from the official press release: Chancellor announces new plan for Cal Athletics’ future 28 September 2010 BERKELEY — University of California, Berkeley, Chancellor Robert J. Birgeneau announced today… a comprehensive plan for the Department of Intercollegiate Athletics that will result in a broad-based yet sustainable program that continues to support the campus’s commitment to excellence. At the end of this academic year, baseball, men’s and women’s gymnastics, and women’s…

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Health Care Costs & Public Higher Ed

Byuclafaculty

In an op ed in the NY Times, Peter Orzag – former Obama OMB director – makes a point that others have also made. Public higher education nationally is squeezed indirectly by rising health care costs. When state legislatures are faced with rising costs of health care for their share of Medicaid (Medi-Cal in California), they tend to reduce public higher ed budgets to pay for those costs. Most likely, this effect is a reflection of the fact that unlike many other public programs, higher ed has a potential non-tax source of funding: tuition. In any event, some excerpts:A Health…

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Whitman Radio Ad Proposes Transfer of $1 Billion from Welfare to Higher Ed

Byuclafaculty

The latest radio ad from gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman proposes adding $1 billion to the budget for UC and CSU. The money is to be obtained from reductions in welfare spending by tightening up the welfare program. Click on the video at the bottom of this post (the big round circle in the center) to hear the ad. Joe Mathews, author of the Schwarzenegger bio book, “The People’s Machine,” critiques the ad at http://www.nbclosangeles.com/blogs/prop-zero/A-Meg-Idea-That-Doesnt-Add-Up-101817413.html Excerpt from Mathews: Meg Whitman’s new radio ad features what sounds like a good idea: Take $1 billion from what she describes as California’s bloated welfare…

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UC Borrowing Absent a State Budget

Byuclafaculty

UC, CSU, community college chiefs plead for quick budget passage (Excerpts) Chancellors say that without a state budget, ‘We are operating with a blindfold on.’ The delay has already forced campuses to borrow money and threatened some students’ enrollment and financial aid. By Larry Gordon, Los Angeles Times August 28, 2010 The leaders of California’s three systems of public higher education made a joint plea Friday for quick passage of the much-delayed state budget, warning of negative consequences on campuses if the deadlock in Sacramento continues much longer… UC and Cal State in effect are lending lower-income students the financial…

University of California Scientists won’t be boycotting Nature

Byuclafaculty

Note: See the earlier post on this matter. Aug. 27, 2010, USA Today By Ben Ailes It appears the University of California is no longer contemplating a boycott of the esteemed science journal Nature. In a statement released Wednesday by the University of California and Nature Publishing Group, the entities announced “an agreement to work together to address the current licensing challenges as well as the larger issues of sustainability in the scholarly communication process.” This June there had been rumblings that the massive university system might consider a publishing boycott if Nature’s proposed hike in prices — as much…

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The Rent, The Rent! University Head’s Housing Raises Ire

Byuclafaculty

August 21, 2010, NY Times (Bay Area Edition) University Head’s Housing Raises Ire By STEVE FAINARU Five minutes before midnight on June 30, movers hauled the last boxes from a spectacular rented home in the Oakland Hills. The tenant’s lease was about to expire, and in his haste to get out, he left behind thousands of dollars of damage to the hardwood floors and Venetian plastered walls. The tenant was Mark G. Yudof, president of the University of California. His midnight move was the latest chapter in a two-year housing drama that has cost the university more than $600,000 and…

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Help for the UC Budget? The Pension Fund?

Byuclafaculty

From President Yudof’s Facebook page today comes the information below. Question: Can we use the coin for the UC budget? Maybe put it in the pension fund? Rare Coin Discovered in Israel by Mark Yudof on Tuesday, August 17, 2010 at 11:45am Congratulations to my good friend Andrea Berlin, a distinguished archeologist, who was part of an American team that discovered the heaviest gold coin ever found in Israel. The find, at Tel Kedesh archeological dig site, near Israel’s border with Lebanon, dates to 190 BCE, exactly when a final peace treaty was established between the Ptolemies of Egypt and…