UC budget crisis

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Recalling the Recall

Byuclafaculty

It’s all yours, Arnold. We are getting to the 10th anniversary of the recall of Gov. Gray Davis and his replacement by Arnold Schwarzenegger.  One of the events that followed was a UC “compact” with the new governor that was worthless; as soon as the state had budgetary problems, the compact disappeared.  A key problem was that the governor doesn’t appropriate funds; the legislature does.  Nonetheless, there were photo ops: Compact buddies For nostalgia buffs, here is a video history of the recall in three parts:[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pt7O-yyzFJs?feature=player_detailpage] [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcUZZQ11u6w?feature=player_detailpage] [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6eSlO46FnA?feature=player_detailpage] Finally, the comic side from Harry Shearer:[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WR6T3JG6R8?feature=player_detailpage]

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Listen to First Segment of Afternoon Session of UC Regents: 9-18-2013

Byuclafaculty

Summary: The afternoon session began with a presentation by the new president of the UC Students Assn.  He described a program to find jobs for graduate students whose careers are currently limited by the loose labor market.  He described a program focused on prisons vs. UC, the details of which were not clear.  He favored an oil severance tax and also divestment from fossil fuels.  (Some listeners might find those causes somewhat in conflict; depends on how you look at them.)    Much of the afternoon was then spent on budgetary issues.  Charts were shown indicating the volatility in tuition…

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More than you wanted to know about the state budget?

Byuclafaculty

It may be more than you wanted to know, but a draft chapter for California Policy Options 2014 on the California state budget (with some references to UC) is available at: http://www.employmentpolicy.org/topic/402/research/californias-sleep-well-state-budget-draft-8-31-2013  [Click on pdf to download.]

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I know it’s unpleasant to hear but…

Byuclafaculty

When you listen to Regents’ comments at their meetings on the state budget, you have the impression at times that they think that the state and governor have reversed course and now acknowledge responsibility for the UC pension plan.  So, for the record, here is the Legislative Analyst’s summary of the latest state budget and the UC pension: Contains Intent Language Regarding UC Retirement Costs. The budget plan does not designate any funding for UC employer retirement costs, though the university expects these costs to increase by $67 million in 2013-14. Budget trailer bill language states, however, that the absence of…

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Where the money is

Byuclafaculty

Willie Sutton was supposed to have explained that he robbed banks “because that’s where the money is.”  As this blog has pointed out on numerous occasions, while the regents and the governor worry about finding efficiencies and about saving some money via online education, big bucks capital projects – such as UCLA’s Grand Hotel – get little scrutiny.  And even when questions are asked – as occurred with the Grand Hotel – the requests are ultimately approved.  The San Francisco Chronicle has an article about a nonprofit entity that works on tallying and “visualizing” publicly available data.  You can find the…

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The Story of UC and the “Troll”

Byuclafaculty

Bloomberg and other sources are reporting that UC and a firm described in the news media – particularly news media sympathetic to the high-tech sector – as a patent troll have lost an appeal concerning an internet patent.  On the other side of the appeal were Amazon and Google.  In an earlier trial in a lower court, the patent was invalidated.  Yahoo and J.C. Penney were also involved in the lower court case. [“Patent trolls” are companies that acquire patents – particularly patents that seem to involve a broad range of activities – and then sue firms that use the…

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Listen to the UC Regents Morning Meeting of 7-17-2013

Byuclafaculty

University of California Regents: July 17, 2013 – morning session Agenda: Wednesday, July 17 8:30 am Committee of the Whole (open session – includes public comment session)9:30 am Board (open session)9:40 am Committee on Finance (open session)12:00 Lunch(Note: Appointment of the student regent was moved from the 9:30 am session to after the Committee on Finance due to airplane delays that affected some regents.) Highlights: Outgoing UC President Yudof delivered observations that could be considered advice to the incoming president.  He included a skeptical off-hand remark on the MOOC industry, noted that UCOP bureaucracy will tend to grow unless checked,…

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Vim and Vigor on UC Online Higher Ed

Byuclafaculty

From the Sacramento Bee Capitol Alert blog: Jerry Brown says UC, CSU leaders pledged to pursue online ed ‘vigorously’ Gov. Jerry Brown said today that he vetoed his own budget proposal to earmark $20 million for online education at the University of California and California State University systems only after leaders of those institutions assured him they would pursue online course offerings on their own.“I had an agreement from both the segments that they would carry out online vigorously,” Brown told reporters at an event in Sacramento. “As the leader of both governing boards, I’m actively engaged with both the…

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No Mandate for Online Ed at UC: Let’s Pretend!

Byuclafaculty

Our post last night that the governor line-item vetoed his own $10 million mandate in the new state budget for online courses at UC is correct in a literal sense. But what appears to have happened is that UC – which doesn’t like overt mandates which challenge its constitutional autonomy – agreed that it would spend $10 million on online ed anyway if the governor would just remove the mandate language. From Inside Higher Ed today: …“We’ve made a commitment to provide the $10 million, so it’s not going to affect our plans,” said Steve Montiel, a spokesman for the UC…

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Online Ed Earmarked Money Line-Item Vetoed

Byuclafaculty

Michael Meranze, in commenting on the previous post, noted that among the items vetoed by the governor was language that earmarked $10 million at UC for online ed courses.  As readers will know, that earmark was in the budget bill at the request of the governor.  Other quasi-earmarks were also vetoed.  The actual language doesn’t delete dollars from the UC budget – which is why I missed it in the prior post.  It just deletes specifications for how dollars are to be used.  The veto language reads: Item 6440-001-0001 — For support of University of California. I revise this item…