UC Regents

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Trivial Pursuit?

Byuclafaculty

The California State Auditor examines the accounts of state agencies including UC.  Chapter 8 of its latest report focuses on an unnamed administrator who came from CSU and apparently misspent travel funds there to the tune of over $150,000 before arriving at UC.  When this problem at CSU became known, UC tightened up the oversight of the administrator’s UC travel.  Nevertheless, the auditor found a few thousand dollars in improperly charged UC travel expenses. From Chapter 8: …In October 2012 the university reported that it intends to seek reimbursement from the official for the wasteful expenses identified in this report….

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Dirks’ Perks Irk

Byuclafaculty

Much of the news media coverage of the appointment of the new UC-Berkeley chancellor Nicholas Dirks involved the fact that his salary would be $50,000 more than that of his predecessor (albeit an increment paid by private funds).   You can find the salary comparison used to justify the pay level to the Regents at: http://regents.universityofcalifornia.edu/regmeet/nov12/c1.pdf The governor, the lieutenant governor, and one regent was unhappy with the salary and the news media picked up the complaints.  See, for example: http://www.mercurynews.com/education/ci_22074232/uc-berkeleys-new-chancellor-under-consideration-by-regents http://www.foxandhoundsdaily.com/2012/11/cost-cutting-wont-come-easy-to-uc/ Probably, however, if there was to be controversy, it might have been over an item in the footnotes…

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Did I say that?

Byuclafaculty

A look backwards: Lieutenant Governor (and ex officio Regent) Gavin Newsom was interviewed on KGO radio on Oct. 17 about Prop 30 and its relation to tuition.  In the course of the interview, he criticized Governor Brown for being late to get into the campaign for the proposition and, effectively, for not telling students the truth that their tuition would rise even if Prop 30 passed. At the time, polling (which proved inaccurate) was indicating that Prop 30’s chance of passage was marginal.  And Governor Brown had just made a campaign stop at UCLA to enlist student support.  As it…

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Listen to Regents Meeting of Nov. 15, 2012

Byuclafaculty

Now that the audio file has arrived, we are catching up with the parts of the mid-November Regents meeting not previously posted (not to be confused with the special meeting held yesterday).  Below is a link to the final day of the mid-November meeting. During the public comment period, there were complaints about tuition increases and budget cuts.  There was more about the swap deals – see earlier posts on this matter – in which UC swapped a variable interest rate for a fixed one.  As it turned out, interest rates fell so that the “insurance” against a rise in…

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Follow-Up on Today’s Special Regents Meeting

Byuclafaculty

  We noted yesterday that there would be a special Regents meeting today to approve pay packages for the new chancellor of Berkeley and the new acting chancellor at Riverside. Also noted was the fact that yours truly could not record the live-stream of the meeting and so the posting of the audio would have to await our usual public documents request.  However, I am told there were three votes against the Berkeley salary of $486,800: the governor, the lieutenant governor, and Regent Zettel.  We will post updates.  And we again ask why the Regents’ office, since it has recordings…

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Listen to Regents Meeting of Nov. 13, 2012

Byuclafaculty

The UC Board of Regents, Committee on Grounds and Building met on the afternoon of Nov. 13, 2012.  On the agenda were public comments, approval of the UC capital budget plan, discussion of a long term plan for student housing at UC-Santa Barbara, and design approval of a $118.6 million faculty office building project at UC-San Francisco. Two speakers in the public comments session referred to out-of-state students although exactly what was being suggested was unclear. The capital budget is a wishlist of projects that it would be nice if the state funded through general obligation bonds.  However, given the…

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Special Regents Meeting Tomorrow

Byuclafaculty

The Regents are having a special meeting tomorrow, apparently to approve pay packages for the new chancellor at Berkeley and the acting chancellor at Riverside.  Yours truly cannot record the meeting due to other commitments.  However, as usual, we will request the audio and post it when it becomes available.  The agenda is at http://regents.universityofcalifornia.edu/regmeet/nov27.html New Berkeley chancellor bio at:http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/article/28634 New Riverside acting chancellor bio at:http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/article/28698

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UC-R Students’ Tuition Plan: Media Coverage But Lack of UC Enthusiasm

Byuclafaculty

UC administrator?  UC Regent? Blog readers may recall that some UC-Riverside students came up with a proposal to have “free” tuition at UC in exchange for a tax on graduates’ future incomes.  This idea has actually been around for some time but more typically at the federal level, i.e., a program involving all universities.  There are a variety of issues such as the lack of a cash flow immediately until the future graduates begin being taxed.  If such a plan were done only for one university system in one state, there are enforcement issues.  How would the tax be collected…

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Gov. Brown on UC online education & budget

Byuclafaculty

Last Wednesday, we posted the audio of the UC Regents meeting of that day which Governor Brown attended as an ex officio Regent.  We noted in that posting that he pushed for UC to move into online education.  And he indicated that without such a shift in the “paradigm,” UC could not receive enough funding from the state to prevent continued increases in tuition.  For the convenience of blog readers, below is an excerpt from that meeting in which these views are expressed by Governor Brown: [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKX-F5OCBJc?feature=player_detailpage]

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Wishlist budget adopted by Regents

Byuclafaculty

As expected, the Regents adopted the budget – which the governor on Wednesday termed a wishlist – yesterday.  The value of adopting a wishlist budget which will not be funded as requested was debated on Wednesday but adopted by the Committee on Finance of the Regents.  We posted the audio of that meeting, including the governor’s comments. Yours truly was in transit yesterday and so could not record the Regents’ live stream audio. We will, as usual, request the recording as a public document and post it when received. (And [sigh] again we ask why the Regents audios are not…