UC History on Presidents' Day: A Message from the First UC President

The first UC President, Clark Kerr, viewed the university as of the mid-20th century as part of the "knowledge industry."  Video below.

LAO Report on Higher Ed Contains Significant Pension Recommendations

The state’s Legislative Analyst has released a lengthyreport on funding higher education which covers UC, CSU, and the communitycolleges (as well as CalGrants).  Thereport is essentially a response to the governor’s January budget proposal withregard to higher ed.

Generally, the report tends to disagree with the governor’sapproach which the Legislative Analyst views as giving too much autonomy to UCand the other segments with regard to enrollment and other matters.  On the other hand, it documents the trendtowards reduced state funding and thus seems to continue the pay-less/say-moreapproach which is odd on its face.

The Legislative Analyst does raise questions about thetrigger cuts proposed by the governor in case his tax initiative does not passin November.

There is a lengthy section on pension matters, especiallyfor UC which has not received explicit state funding for its pension for overtwo decades and which has had to divert other funding to deal with resumedpension contributions.  The report seemsto favor some state funding for the UC pension and – significantly - does notcondition it on UC being covered by the statewide plan proposed by thegovernor.  That is a step in the rightdirection if followed by the legislature in the final budget.  The report favors somewhat less of a pensioncontribution than UC has requested.  However,establishing the principle of some state responsibility would be an advance.

Excerpts from the pension portion are below:

Retirement Costs

The Governor proposes major changes to the way in which some retirementcosts are funded for higher education. For CSU, the Governor proposes to nolonger make base adjustments to reflect changing retirement costs. For UC, theGovernor proposes (1) a $90 million base augmentation that could be used forpension costs or other purposes, and (2) no out–year adjustments for retirementcosts. The budget proposes no changes to the way retirement is funded for CCC.

Background

CSU Pension Benefits. CSU employees are members of theCalifornia Public Employees Retirement System (CalPERS)—the same retirementsystem to which most state employees belong. Funding for this system comes fromboth employer contributions and employee contributions. Each year, as is thecase with other state departments, CSU's employer contributions to CalPERS arecharged against its main General Fund appropriation. The employer contributionis based on a percent of employee salaries and wages that is determined byCalPERS and specified in the annual budget act. The Governor's budget annuallyadjusts CSU's main appropriation to reflect any estimated changes in theemployer contribution. For example, the Governor's budget reduces CSU's mainappropriation by $38 million due to a lower employer rate and lower payrollcosts in the current year. The CSU is expected to contribute $404 million toCalPERS in 2012–13.
UC Pension Benefits. Employees of UC (and Hastings) aremembers of the University of California Retirement Plan (UCRP). This retirementplan is separate from CalPERS and under the control of UC. Prior to 1990, thestate adjusted UC's General Fund appropriation to reflect increases anddecreases in the employer's share of retirement contributions for state–fundedUC employees. Starting in 1990, however, UC halted both employer and employeecontributions to UCRP because the pension plan had become"superfunded." Specifically, the plan at that time was enjoyingexceptionally strong investment returns, resulting in assets that exceededliabilities by more than 50 percent. This "funding holiday" lastednearly 20 years until the plan's assets had declined considerably andcontributions once again became necessary. In April 2010, both UC and itsemployees resumed contributions to the plan. The state, however, has notprovided UC with any additional funding specifically for that purpose.

Governor Proposes New Approach To Funding Retirement Costs

The Governor proposes two major changes related to funding for universityretirement plans:

• A $90 million base budget augmentation for UC that, according to the administration, "can be used to address costs related to retirement program contributions." The administration emphasizes that this funding is not being provided specifically to fund costs for UCRP. Rather, UC could use it for any purpose related to its state–related programs—including, but not limited to, UCRP.
• A new policy that the segments' budgets no longer be adjusted for changes in retirement costs in the future. Instead, state–related retirement costs would be funded entirely from the segments' unrestricted base appropriations.

Unclear Which Retirement Costs Are Affected. The Governor'sproposed language refers simply to "retirement costs." At the timethis analysis was prepared, the administration had not provided sufficientclarity on whether this would include costs for retiree health and dentalbenefits. For example, funding for CSU's retiree health care costs arecurrently bundled together with funding for other CalPERS retiree health carecosts. Since the administration has not yet indicated how it would split outfunding for CSU, we are unsure whether the proposal applies to these costs. Theadministration also was unable to provide information regarding base fundingfor retiree health costs for UC. For these reasons, our budget analysis onlyfocuses on funding for pension costs for UC and CSU.

UC Proposal Has More Merit,But Raises Several Questions

The request for pension–related funding for UC is more difficult andcomplicated than that for CSU. This is because (1) the state currently is notproviding any pension–related funding to UC, and (2) UC has full control overits pension system. To address the Governor's proposal, the Legislature shouldconsider the following questions:

• What is the main justification for the state to provide funding for UC's retirement costs? In other words, why is funding for these costs a state responsibility?
• Given that UC controls its own pension plan, are UC's pension benefits reasonable? How do they compare to the pension benefits the state provides state employees?
• How much funding should the state provide UC in 2012–13? More specifically, what methodology or calculations support the request for $90 million?
• Finally, should the state lock in the pension amount provided UC at the 2012–13 contribution level or provide UC with budget adjustments for pension costs in future years? …

Pension Costs Should Be Funded as Part of Workload Budget. Thestate currently provides funding for pension–related costs for all other stateagencies as part of a normal, workload budget. In other words, the stateprovides funding to state agencies for the salaries and benefits (includingpension benefits) related to their budgeted positions. Given that the stateprovides UC with funding for the salaries and benefits of some of itsemployees, it would make sense from a standard, workload budgeting perspectiveto also provide funding related to pension costs. As noted earlier, the statedid provide such pension–related funding to UC for many years prior to thepension holiday that began in 1990. (As we discuss in the nearby text box, thestate has repeatedly deferred a final budget increase for pension costs sincethat time.) Given that the university has had to restart its contributions toits pension plan in recent years, we find justification in its request that thestate also resume providing pension–related funding.
UC Pension Benefits Similar to State Employee Pension Benefits. Althoughthe state does not control UC's pension system, actions taken to date by theRegents have largely mirrored recent changes to state employee pensionbenefits. For example, the Regents have taken action to reduce pension costs inthe long term by increasing the minimum retirement age for new employees. Inaddition, …the Regents have approved increases to employee contribution ratesthat are beginning to bring them in line with state employee contributionrates, which are now generally 8 percent. (Some of UC's proposed employeecontribution increases are still subject to collective bargaining.) Additionalcontribution increases beyond July 2013 will also likely be necessary to reducethe plan's significant unfunded liability that has accrued due to thedecades–long pension funding holiday and recent market downturns.

UC's Estimate of State's Share of 2012–13 PensionCosts Is Overstated. The $90 million that UC requested from theadministration is only a fraction of the $255.6 million that UC estimates to bethe state's share for 2012–13. The UC states it requested the lower amount inrecognition of the state's severe fiscal shortfall. The university furtherindicates that it will likely seek the full amount of what it estimates to bethe state's share (which it calculates could rise to roughly $450 million) infuture years...

We find two issues that the Legislature should carefully consider withrespect to how the university has estimated the state's share of UC retirementcosts.

• First, we find that the request for $90 million in 2012–13 is overstated. …UC's estimate of the state's share of its 2012–13 retirement cost increase totals about $78 million. The UC appears to be requesting a greater amount because it believes that the state should provide contributions to account not only for incremental retirement costs in 2012–13, but also for part of the cost increases in the two prior years. We take a different view. The UC has managed—by both redirecting internal resources as well as increasing student tuition—to fund all of its employer contributions in both 2010–11 and 2011–12. If the Legislature were to provide funding related to prior years, the funding would in effect free up existing UC base funding for other purposes. In our view, given the state's fiscal shortfall, such an augmentation would be unwise.
• Second, the university's calculation of the state's share of retirement contributions includes employer costs related to tuition–funded salaries. From a workload budgeting standpoint, the state portion of retirement costs should only be related to state–funded payroll costs. Given, however, that the Governor's budget assumes no increases for tuition in 2012–13, the Legislature may wish to consider providing the funding for pension costs related to tuition–funded salaries in 2012–13. In future years, higher pension costs—just like any other UC cost—presumably would be covered by the General Fund and tuition fees in proportion to their current funding levels.

Timing Not Right to Lock In Base Funding for Pensions. Aswith the CSU proposal, now would be a poor time to choose to lock in a basefunding level for UC pensions, given that the Governor is separately proposingto modify public employee pensions to reduce costs in the long run. Inaddition, as noted earlier, UC intends to increase its employer contributionsover the next few years, although it has not yet reached agreement with all ofits union–represented employees on the employee contribution rate. In our view,the Legislature should carefully evaluate future requests from UC for pensionfunding on a year–by–year basis in the context of the university's currentpension benefit and contribution structure. In the long term, however, it couldmake sense to expect UC to fund its pension costs out of its base budget, giventhat the university's retirement system is separate from the state's. Thiscould only work once a reasonable funding level has been identified andcontribution amounts have stabilized.

Recommendations

…Recommend Restarting Budget Adjustments for UC. Asdiscussed above, we find that there is sufficient justification on a workloadbudget basis to provide UC with an augmentation that the university could useto address its pension costs. We recommend, however, that the Legislature onlyprovide funding for the incremental change in 2012–13 in UC's pension costs forstate– and tuition–funded employees—which we estimate to be $78 million. Thiswould mean reducing the Governor's request for $90 million in General Fundsupport by $12 million. In addition, we recommend that the Legislature adoptintent language in the budget specifying that in the future funding for UCretirement costs (1) shall be determined annually by the Legislature, (2) shallbe contingent on such factors as the comparability of UC's pension benefits andcontributions to those of state employees, and (3) shall not necessarilyinclude funding for tuition–supported employee pension costs or pension costsincurred prior to 2012–13.

The full report is at http://lao.ca.gov/analysis/2012/highered/higher-ed-020812.pdf

A video presentation of the report highlights is availablebelow:

UC Tuition: His Way or the Conway?

The photo shows Assembly Speaker John Pérez talking to GOPminority leader Connie Conway.  Given theexcerpt below from today’s online San Francisco Chronicle, let’s hope he isbeing super-persuasive.

==============
Excerpt:

California students from middle-income families wouldreceive massive breaks on tuition and fees at the state's colleges anduniversities under legislation Assembly Speaker John Pérez plans to introducetoday at the Capitol.  Under the plan,undergraduate students from families with household income of less than$150,000 would have their tuition and fees cut by two-thirds, bringing the costbelow what it was nearly a decade ago.  Itwould amount to a $4,000 annual savings for California State University studentsand just over $8,100 for students attending the University of California andwould take effect as soon as this fall. Both new students and current studentswould be eligible…

The speaker's office estimates the program would cost thestate about $1 billion per year, which would be raised by eliminating acorporate tax break that was approved in 2009 as part of budget negotiationsbetween Democrats and Republicans. That tax break allows corporations to choosethe cheaper of two formulas for calculating the taxes they owe…

Any change in the tax requires a two-thirds vote of the Legislature,which means at least two Republicans in each house must agree…

Full story at http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/02/08/MNOJ1N2D0B.DTL

Actually, we have some audio of what Pérez is saying to Conway:

Duly Noted

Dostoyevsky's notes did get published.  But did you know that UC has rules against students publishing notes taken in class?  There are websites which make a business of publishing student classnotes.  Scroll to the bottom of this entry for an example.  UC threatens legal action when notes from its classes are distributed.


According to CaliforniaWatch:
...The policies raise questions about whether instructors or students have copyrights to the notes students take in class. While the California Education Code prohibits students and others from selling class notes – and many campuses have policies that also ban unauthorized note-selling – critics say students, not instructors, own the copyright to their own notes.   

Some university officials say faculty members have the right to protect their professional reputation – they don't want inaccurate or low-quality notes to be attributed to them. But others say the university policies are restricting students' free speech...

See the full article at http://californiawatch.org/dailyreport/colleges-crack-down-selling-sharing-notes-14744

No Bee Link Here

The Sacramento Bee has updated its database of all state salaries by name, including UC employees.  No, I won't give you the link although you can readily search it out.  

Yours truly writes a weekly blog for a group called the Employment Policy Research Association.  As it happens, this week's blog for that group tells you why I won't supply the link to the Bee's database.  (The fact that the blog entry and the database appeared in the same week was a coincidence.)

=====================

http://www.employmentpolicy.org/topic/402/blog/mitchell%E2%80%99s-musings-1-30-12-matters-degree

Mitchell’s Musings1-30-12: Matters of Degree

Daniel J.B. Mitchell

Let’s start with the admission that I am not a lawyer, letalone a constitutional scholar.  So Ican’t really evaluate the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent unanimous decision whichvoided the conviction of someone apparently dealing drugs that was obtainedbased on GPS evidence.  All I can say isthat the justices seemed upset with the idea of the police attaching a deviceto a private car which allowed tracking of the car’s movements and eventualfinding of incriminating evidence.  Trustme; I will ultimately relate that decision to an employment concern.

It appears (to me) that the degree of efficiency in thetechnology utilized played an important role in the GPS decision although partof the discomfort of the court seemed related to the intrusion on the vehicleneeded to attach the device.  It alsoappears (to me) that if the police had done old fashioned following of thevehicle around with another car - and eventually found incriminating evidenceas a result - that approach to obtaining evidence would have been OK with theCourt.

If that interpretation is correct, there seems – to thisnon-lawyer at least – to be only a matter of degree between high-techsurveillance - which produced massive amounts of data according to the Courtdecision – and old fashioned tailing. But obviously the former was much more efficient and much less costlyand labor intensive, than the latter.  Ifprivacy violations are cheap, they are more likely to occur than if they areexpensive.  

There are analogies in other controversies in the newsinvolving evolving technology.  Therecent brouhaha surrounding the congressional political battle betweenHollywood and Internet providers over measures to prevent piracy of films andsuch has similarities to the GPS decision. If you saw the film, The King’sSpeech, you may recall the scene – taking place in the 1930s – in which thespeech therapist, using a new home phonograph record device said to be fromAmerica – records the King. 

So it technically was possible in the 1930s, with what musthave been an expensive device, to copy phonograph records – possibly violatingcopyright.  After World War II, lessexpensive home tape recorders and wire recorders became available.  It was becoming easier to copy, say, radio broadcastsof the top-ten tunes, again possibly violating copyright.  But record companies didn’t panic since themeans of copying and distributing was cumbersome involving reels of tape orspools of wire.

More concern concerning copyrights and intellectual propertyarose when home video cassette recorders came along and movies might thereforebe copied from TV broadcasts.  TheBetamax case ultimately went to the U.S. Supreme Court on that issue.  But home cassette recorders were allowed inthe Court’s 1984 decision.  Thatcontroversy occurred before there was an effective Internet which would allowrelatively easy distribution of copied movies by digital means.

In short, courts and legislators are now continually facedwith changes in technology which make past transgressions that were onceinherently limited much easier.  Exactlywhere you draw the line between what is and what isn’t going to be allowed is amatter of degree and discretion.  And adecision at one point in time may be made obsolete as technology advances.  There really is no absolute, timeless rule.

That observation brings me to issues of privacy andtechnology – and employment.  A number ofnewspapers and other organizations have obtained court judgments saying thatpublic payrolls and public pension rolls are public documents – and presumablyalways were.  Therefore, it is OK to postthem wholesale on the web with the namesof the employee or retiree included. 

Now it may well have been the case in a simpler age that onecould have gone to a public office and obtained information on payments toemployee X or retiree Y, using state and local equivalents of the federalFreedom of Information Act.  But copyingdown the entire payroll of an agency would not have been a simple matter.  And wholesale and easy distributing theinformation, if one had the patience to copy it, would also have been difficultand costly.  But currently such wholesalecopying and distribution has become easy, thanks to computer technology and theInternet.  With that technologicaladvance, the process today raises issues of privacy and potential identitytheft.

Most private employers would not think that publishing theirpayrolls wholesale, disclosing pay named employee by named employee, was a goodidea as a human resource practice.  Weknow that no private employers do it.  Andamong the employers who do not choose to do it are the very newspapers makingavailable public employer databases. Surely, their readers might like to find out what they (the newspapers)pay their editors, columnists, reporters, and – who knows – even their floorsweepers.  But the fact that readersmight be interested and that the newspapers already have the data on their ownpayrolls has not impelled any newspapers I know of even to contemplate suchpublication.

When pushed, the newspaper response is that the public has aright to know where its tax money goes.[1]  But actually there are lines drawn.  So far there have been no court decisions –again that I know of – that make wholesale health records of public employeesavailable by name, even though taxpayers fund public health insurance benefitsfor employees.  Internal personnel fileswith performance appraisals are not routinely made public on a wholesale basis.But couldn’t it be argued that the public has a right to know about healthexpenses and performance reviews?  So, infact, as in the GPS case, it is a matter of degree and balance.  Not everything funded by taxpayers is in facta public document.

There are ways of balancing publication of public payrolldata against privacy and identity theft concerns.  Pay rates by occupation can be made available– but without names – so that outsiders can judge whether public pay rates arebeing set correctly.  The Californiastate controller, for example, has published municipal pay rates without names.  One can learn, for example, that one “policeevidence clerk” in the City of Santa Monica in base salary and overtime earned$60,228 while the other earned $59,923.[2]  But no names are provided.  If you are worried about whether Santa Monicaoverpays or underpays its police evidence clerks, now you have the data todecide.

The general exception about naming names in the privatesector, at least for publically-traded firms, is that top executive pay is madepublic (with the names known).  Thatpractice might also be followed in the public sector.  And it typically is - and has been.  What the President of the United States ispaid has not been top secret.  And notethat presidents, governors, mayors, or Supreme Court justices are publicfigures.  Police evidence clerks are not.

Undoubtedly, the GPS decision by the Supreme Court will berevisited in the future as technology changes. What if it becomes possible to track a car without actually attaching adevice?  Cars of the future may havedevices built in that transmit information for internal operating reasons.  What if the police pick up those signals anduse them for tracking? 

Bottom line: The public employee payroll issue also needsrenewed court and legislative attention. Many more people are affected. That is, many more people work in the public sector than there are drugdealers who police might want to tail. It is clear that those newspapers that are publishing payrolls by nameare set on doing so.  Sometimes they simplysay it is legal – which it apparently is at present.  But they don’t routinely publish, say, thehome addresses of crime victims or the names of rape victims even though thesecan be obtained in public police records. So they cannot really take the position that they simply publisheverything that is legal without making any judgments about what is appropriate.  Since their good judgment on crime victims isevidently not going to be applied to public payroll records, only if courts andlegislators say it is not legal would wholesale public payroll publishing byname come to an end.

---

[1]I rather doubt that the fact that subsidized mailing rates would be viewed bynewspaper publishers as grounds to force them to make their payrolls public,even though one might argue that public money is involved in the subsidy.  Newspapers also receive other public benefitsincluding antitrust exemptions in some circumstances and, of course, FirstAmendment protections. 

[2]Figures are for 2010.  The full databaseis at http://lgcr.sco.ca.gov/.

UC History: Connerly

Former UC Regent Ward Connerly who led the move to abolishaffirmative action at UC in 1995 is back in the news, albeit not in a positiveway. 

http://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2012/01/18/allegations-against-prominent-foe-affirmative-action  (There is a link within that link to a NYTimes article with more detail.)  A related news item appeared in the Sacramento Bee this morning:

http://www.sacbee.com/2012/01/18/4195636/connerly-financial-misdeeds-alleged.html

The news clip below describes the Regents’action but focuses on then-Governor Pete Wilson.  (Connerly is briefly shown.)  The Regents’ resolution was made redundant bythe later Prop 209 and the resolution was subsequently repealed.  However, since UC is covered by Prop 209, therepeal was symbolic.

As a prior blog post noted, this week's Regents meeting is likely to be less controversial.

News video from 1995:

No smoking at UC by 2014

The University ofCalifornia will ban smoking and chewing tobacco on all 10 campuses within twoyears, President Mark Yudof told campus chancellors this week.  Nearly 600 other campuses nationwide havebanned smoking, and many California universities either limit smokers toisolated parts of campus or keep them from lighting up at all.

…The university likely would have banned smoking earlier, butsmokers vehemently argued against it, said Trish Ratto, a health educator andmanager of UC Berkeley's Health Matters Wellness Program.  The university will implement the ban instages to help smokers quit gradually rather go cold turkey.  By 2014, however, nobody -- students,professors, custodians or conference attendees -- will be allowed to smoke orchew tobacco on campus…

Full article at http://www.insidebayarea.com/news/ci_19723520

Ballot Initiative Offers Online Route into UC

With a formal title and a favorable fiscal analysis in hand,backers of an initiative to broaden access to online college preparatoryclasses will begin gathering signatures today to qualify for the Novemberballot.
The proposed initiative would give students the right to go elsewherefor a course required for admission to a UC or CSU campus if their schooldoesn’t offer it. While they could drive to a nearby district, they alsocould take the course online. It would establish a California Diploma, which would be awarded when a student completedthe 15 required courses, known as A-G…

(The sponsoring) group has oral commitments for $500,000 ofthe $2 million needed to collect 504,000 verified voter signatures, (aspokesperson) said. Donors will start identifying themselves in coming weeks;many of the backers are expected to be from Silicon Valley…

Full story at http://toped.svefoundation.org/2012/01/04/next-step-for-online-ed-initiative/

The official summary of the initiative reads:

Online K-12 Education.College Preparatory Courses. Initiative Statute.

Summary Date: 01/03/12| Circulation Deadline: 06/01/12 | Signatures Required: 504,760

Proponent: Phillip D.Kohn (714) 641-3415

Authorizes schooldistricts, county offices of education, and charter schools to claim averagedaily attendance funding for student participation in approved online courses.Authorizes school districts to contract with public and private providers todeliver online courses taught by credentialed teachers. Allows students to takeonline courses offered by any school district, regardless of student'sresidence. Provides students access to courses required for admission to stateuniversities, and establishes the California Diploma, which demonstratescompletion of courses required for University of California and CaliforniaState University admission. Summary of estimate by Legislative Analyst andDirector of Finance of fiscal impact on state and local government: In the longterm, local school district savings potentially in the hundreds of millions ofdollars annually if schools experience efficiencies and widespreadparticipation in the use of online courses. These savings would be offset insmall part by administrative costs to implement the measure, including localcosts for developing online curriculum, contracting with online providers, andensuring students access to online courses as well as state costs for changingthe existing school payment system and issuing California Diplomas toqualifying students.

Initiative at http://ag.ca.gov/cms_attachments/initiatives/pdfs/i1005_11-0062_(student_rights).pdf

Buried Lede: UC Reviving Multiyear Tuition Increase Plan with State?

Last September, UC President Yudof proposed to the Regents a multiyear tuition increase plan. The Regents argued among themselves and nothing was adopted. Today's San Francisco Chronicle, in a report on how higher ed is dealing with the trigger cuts (see earlier blog posts), has a buried lede*:

UC will offset the $100 million cut with money it over-contributed for health care, a pool of excess cash that happens to be just above $100 million, UC spokesman Steve Montiel said.

"It's a temporary solution," Montiel said, adding that UC is in talks with the state Department of Finance to try to work out a multiyear agreement in which the state would stop cutting the universities' budgets every year in exchange for a steady, predictable schedule of tuition increases.

Such "compacts" have been tried before, but have blown up in the face of persistent budget shortfalls.

Full article at: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/12/13/MNFV1MBVNN.DTL

*Verb: to bury the lede

(idiomatic, US, journalism) To begin a story with details of secondary importance to the reader while postponing more essential points or facts. From http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bury_the_lede

Free Textbooks from State Online Source?

Darrell Steinberg wants digital library of free textbooks (Excerpt 12/13/11)

Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg announced today that he will push for legislation to create an online open source library to reduce the cost of course materials for college students across the state. The Sacramento Democrat framed the proposed project as an effort to lower costs for students struggling to cope with higher fees and tuition rates at California's public colleges and universities…

Steinberg said the average student spends $1,300 a year on textbooks, a figure his staff said is based on projections the University of California, California State University and community college systems provide to students for budgeting purposes. Under his proposal, materials for 50 common lower division courses would be developed and posted online for free student access. Ordering a paper copy would cost $20, compared to the $200-plus price tag carried by some books. Steinberg plans to seek $25 million to create his proposed Open Education Resources system, with some funding going towards soliciting course material contributions from academics, nonprofits, Silicon Valley developers and the book publishing industry to be shared freely within the system. A new council of faculty leaders from California's public higher education system would be tasked with selecting the courses for the first round of open source textbook development and reviewing and approving the materials added to the library...

Full article at: http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2011/12/steinberg-open-source-texbook-bill-would-lower-student-costs.html

It's great to be free:

PPIC Poll on Public Higher Ed in California

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.

Hole in the Middle of UC Admissions?

Middle income student attendance declines at UC

Samantha Schaefer, 2011-10-30 Orange County Register

Over the past 10 years, the proportion of middle-income students attending the University of California has declined at nearly twice the rate of California middle-income households, while the share of lower- and upper-income UC students has risen. Some analysts suggest the trend stems from repeated hikes in UC tuition costs, coupled with limited access to many kinds of aid for middle-income students, who are increasingly incurring larger and larger loan debt. "We've got some significant problems here," said William Tierney, USC Rossier School of Education professor, Wilbur-Kieffer professor of higher education and director of Center for Higher Education Policy Analysis. "Tuition is rising faster than people can keep up with it because family salaries are not rising as fast. ... It's not simply that there are more people out of work and can't find jobs, but people's salaries are staying flat."

UC officials say they believe the trend mostly stems from a shift in California's overall demographic, perhaps magnified because the population of UC-eligible students is uneven across income brackets…

Over the past 10 years, the UC has seen a 9 percent decrease in the proportion of middle-income students, while the proportions of lower- and higher-income students have grown by equal shares, according to the university's 2011 Accountability Report. Most of decrease came for upper middle income families earning $99,000 to $149,000 – 6 percent – with students from families earning $55,000 to $99,000 declining by 3 percent. But the declines don't align precisely with the fee increases.

The UC tracks the proportion of students from different income levels every year. During the recession in the early 1990s, low-income families increased in California as well as at the UC, the accountability report states. But the decline in middle-income students has continued even in years when there were no tuition hikes…

Full article at http://www.ocregister.com/news/students-324545-income-aid.html

The 2011 UC Accountability Report – from which the news account above is taken and the table below is extracted - is at http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/accountability/documents/accountabilityreport11.pdf

Out of the box on higher ed: Uh Oh

From the Sacramento Bee today (excerpt):

Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom railed against tuition increases and said Wednesday that the state's master plan for higher education is outdated, promising "a different narrative" for higher education by the end of the year.

It was unclear what the plan might contain or how Newsom, a Democrat, might propose to fund it.

"We're going to come up with some out-

of-the-box recommendations, is our hope and expectation," he told The Bee's Capitol Bureau.

Fifty years after the production of the California Master Plan for Higher Education, Newsom said he and officials are preparing to "try to create a different narrative for higher education as a system, as opposed to UC as a system, CSU as a system and community colleges." ...

Full story at: http://www.sacbee.com/2011/10/27/4010012/gavin-newsom-wants-pattern-interrupt.html

Note that the Master Plan's basic purpose was in fact to have 3 well-defined systems.

Sometimes it's best not to open a box:

UC or not UC? - That is the question (to be answered in a few hours)

Bits and pieces of Governor Brown’s public pension plan are leaking out ahead of his news conference later today. UC or not UC, that is the question, as Hamlet might say. But the leaked reports don’t provide the answer so we will have to wait a few hours more. The Capitol Alert report from last night and another from KCAL indicate that the reason Brown wants a ballot prop is to change the CalPERS board. Excerpt from Capitol Alert:

Gov. Jerry Brown will propose a higher retirement age and a less generous pension system for newly-hired state workers, sources familiar with Brown's pension plan said this afternoon. The Democratic governor, who is expected to release his pension plan Thursday, will also propose prohibiting the purchase of additional retirement service credit, or "airtime," for existing employees. And he will call for a ballot measure to reshape the governing board of the California Public Employees' Retirement System, requiring changes to Proposition 162, the 1992 initiative that strengthened the retirement board.

The proposal includes some of the same ideas Brown discussed with Republicans in failed budget talks in March. At the time, however, Brown was thought to be considering for new employees a "hybrid option" involving 401(k)-style benefits, not making that hybrid mandatory for new employees.

The hybrid option Brown will propose for new non-public safety employees will be a three-pronged plan that combines a smaller, defined benefit with Social Security and a 401 (k)-style benefit. The plan, as presented privately by the Brown administration to labor leaders this afternoon, also includes increasing the retirement age from age 55 to 67 for most new, non-public safety employees, the sources said…

Full story at: http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2011/10/jerry-brown-to-propose-mandatory-hybrid-among-pension-changes.html

Here is the similar report from KCAL Channel 9 (that Shane White pointed me to):

http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2011/10/26/governor-brown-seeks-pension-reforms-raising-retirement-age/

However, the KCAL story says ALL employees – not just new hires - will pay half of pension contributions. Even if UC is not included, that contribution formula could put pressure on the Regents to follow. Stay tuned.

Do You Have an Opinion on APM 0668 - Negotiated Salary Program?

To: UCLA Senate Faculty

From: the UCLA Faculty Association

Date: Oct. 26, 2011

Subject: UCLA FA Bulletin on APM 0668 – the proposed Negotiated Salary Program

In times like these—budget cuts to higher education statewide and to UC year after year—it is good to know about the Faculty Association (FA) at UCLA, an independent organization of faculty on this campus since 1973. Its focus is singular: the general welfare of UCLA Senate faculty on the general campus and health sciences. Because it is state funded, the Academic Senate cannot use its resources to speak out on political issues. It is tasked with "joint governance," which means the Senate is inherently in a relationship with the administration.

It is the independence of the FA, which is dues-supported, that enables this organization to speak out on issues of interest to faculty. On some of those issues we ally with faculty associations on other UC campuses or with other groups, and sometimes with the University if it can benefit from our independent voice. But these alliances are made only on an ad hoc basis because the UCLA FA preserves the independence that has always characterized this organization on this campus, statewide, and in Sacramento.

Historically, the FA concentrates on issues that affect the workplace—mainly salaries and benefits—leaving academic matters to the Senate. In this context, the FA is now focusing on the new personnel section APM 0668, called the Negotiated Salary Program (NSP). The campuses have been asked to comment on this proposed policy by Oct 28, and the systemwide comments must be in by Nov. 18, 2011. To see the new policy and read something about its background, go to http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/senate/underreview/APM-668SystemwideReviewRequestandmaterials.pdf

Post your short comments on this blogsite! If your comments more space that the blogsite comments allow, email your longer comments to the FA (ucfa@earthlink.net), and we will distribute them by email.

If you are not already a member of the UCLA FA, the Executive Board asks you to join your colleagues in supporting this organization, which has been acting on behalf of faculty interests for more than 35 years. More information on the history and mission of the UCLA FA is on the website at www.uclafaculty.org. Click “Join” at the top for an application.

The 2010-11 UCLA FA Executive Board

Dwight Read, Chair

Sheila Greibach, Treasurer Computer Sci.,

Michael Allen, English Department

Ian Coulter, Dentistry and Public Health

Jody Kreiman, Surgery

Steve Lippman, Management

Michael Lofchie, Political Science

John Merriam, Molecular Cell Development Bio

Daniel Mitchell, Management and Public Affairs, FA Blogsite Manager

Karen Orren, Political Science

Malina Stefanovska, French and Francophone Studies

Steve Cederbaum, Emeritus Representative

***

FA Bulletin: APM 0668

This new policy would not have surfaced in the old days when California was building one of the greatest educational systems in the world and funding the University of California to become the premier public university. The step/ladder salary plan functioned as an equitable way to reward merit and excellence. But times have changed. Off-scale has been used to supplement salaries of most faculty, while the step/ladder rates have been stuck in place for many years. UC has now been forced to look for alternate funding for faculty salary increases and more liberal policies to maintain its excellence.

The new APM 0668 would allow faculty outside the School of Medicine, which has already a similar program in place, to apply to department chairs or other administrators to use some portion of non-state resources to supplement their salaries for a specific period of time, typically one to two years. The NSP must comply with all federal and state regulations, limitations, and exclusions, regarding the use of grant funds for salary augmentation and any gift or endowment memoranda of understanding about the use of funding.

This negotiated salary supplement for faculty (“y”) would be in addition to base salary (step/scale + off-scale or “x”). The “y” would not be covered by UCRP (the basic UC pension plan) because it would not be a permanent part of the salary; instead, the “y” would be a temporary faculty salary supplement that could be renewed for one to two years, based on the annual or two-year review process regardless of whether the faculty member obtains new or retains previously awarded non-state funding. APM 0668 could be seen as a salary augmentation scheme, parallel to off-scale, but less permanent.

Also, APM 0668 is not a salary exchange program; UC is not replacing its funding with non-state funding. UC is allowing some faculty to supplement their salaries for a limited and specific period of time based on the availability of non-state funds.

The new Negotiated Salary Program (NSP) allows three kinds of funding to supplement faculty salaries: gifts and endowments, professional fees and fees in self-supporting programs, and research grants that allow some part of the total grant to be allocated to salaries. Although APM 0668 may affect very few faculty, it is possible that the greatest number will be those who receive multiple research grants.

NSP has its supporters and detractors. Those in favor say that the policy would allow UC to supplement the salaries of faculty on the general campus in ways similar to those that have been used in the health sciences compensation plan and to do so in the new environment of reduced state funding. The NSP would also help the University recruit new faculty and retain those with competing offers by using extramural funding to sweeten offers. Those opposed to the NSP bring up the costs associated with research grants, some of which may not be fully covered by the indirect cost rate paid to the University on both federal and nonfederal grants. The NSP could also result in even greater salary inequities among faculty at the same step on the ladder that arise from further emphasis on competition and market value.

The UCLA Faculty Association has three areas of concern about the new policy. The first two have to do with the basic assumptions behind the APM 0668, rather than what is stated in the policy itself, and the third has to do with historical methods of setting salary increases for UC faculty.

The first area concerns “the contingency fee,” (668-10, a, 4: “Management of the contingency fund that supports the Program.” Some have speculated that this is actually a tax to divert revenue from one source to support other units with less access to external funding. While equalizing funding is an issue, nothing will short-circuit the NSP faster than the idea of a tax; therefore, it is important that the NSP language specifically spell out what use will be made of the contingency fund.

One such use of the contingency fee would be insurance for the limited time that the NSP has been awarded. For instance, if some faculty get negotiated salary supplements, and in the second year, for example, the funding is cut or stopped, there must be some sort of “contingency fund” or “self-insurance fund” to cover salary supplements that have been negotiated for a specific time period for which the funding is no longer adequate. Illness of the faculty member could also require insurance. The suggested fee is now set at 3% of the faculty member’s base salary (scale/step + off-scale). Thus a faculty member with a base salary of $100,000 would need the grant to pay a contingency fee of $3,000 to UC in case of an unforeseen drop in grant funding.

Why isn’t the contingency fund based on the amount of the negotiated salary supplement rather than the entire base salary, which would not be affected by any reduction in grant funding? If the fee were based on the amount of the salary supplement, the percentage of the contingency fee might differ significantly from 3%. For example, if the negotiated salary supplement were $15,000, then NSP might require as much as 10% of that amount or $1,500 put aside as insurance in case the $13,500 ($15,000 - $1,500) from the grant were to be unavailable during the duration of the grant. This example shows why it is essential to spell out what use will be made of the contingency fund in order to set the rate in a fair and transparent manner. The contingency fund is not a long-term insurance policy to make the NSP a permanent salary increase for any faculty; it is a short-term policy designed for emergencies.

Second, the NSP assumes that no faculty member would be permitted to negotiate a salary increase of more than 25% of base salary, established on an annual basis. If a grant allows more to be charged to salary, why would the University set a limit of 25%? Given this limited time period of the agreement of 1 to 2 years, to assume a 25% limit appears to question the policy before it is even implemented. If limits on the NSP are adopted on all grants, even those for which there are no limits on the amount that can be allocated to salary within the grant itself, then language should be added to explain the rationale for the limit. If the 25% limit has been set to limit possible abuse of the NSP, then the policy itself should be clarified to avoid abuse.

Third, the FA is concerned about whether the negotiated salary supplements would be included in the salary totals for all UC faculty for the purpose of comparing the average UC salaries with those of the Comparison-8 Institutions. This question raises another: do UC’s peer institutions follow a policy similar to NSP and include these kinds of supplements in the salaries they report to UC? If the supplements were included in UC salaries, it would raise the average, which would, in turn, call for a lower salary increase for UC faculty to achieve parity with its peers.

The UCLA FA was invited, among other interested parties, to submit comments on the APM 0668 proposal. This blog post represents discussion of the FA Board at a recent meeting. The FA is more than the Board, of course, so the blog is posted to give all faculty the opportunity to join in the discussion and make their input available.

The UCLA FA welcomes all responses.

Student Aid Alliance

From Inside Higher Ed today (excerpt below) comes a note about the Student Aid Alliance, a higher education group of which both UC and CSU are members.

Alliance Pushes to Save Pell From 'Super Committee'

October 25, 2011 The Student Aid Alliance, a group of 74 higher education associations, advocacy groups and other organizations, announced a lobbying campaign Monday to fight possible cuts to federal financial aid as the Congressional committee on deficit reduction enters the final month before its Nov. 24 deadline…

There are various links in the article including a petition that you may find of interest.

Full story - with the links - at: http://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2011/10/25/alliance-pushes-save-pell-super-committee

UC Admissions in Newspeak?

UC's new admissions rules confuse applicants: The SAT subject exams are no longer required. If students take them anyway, good scores can help but poor scores won't hurt, administrators say. (except)

Larry Gordon, LA Times, 10/24/11

…(T)he new rules have caused widespread confusion and anxiety among students about whether to take the supplemental tests known as SAT subject exams. {Note from yours truly: These tests are the subject exams, not the regular SAT which remains required.} To boost their chances of UC admission, thousands of high school seniors are taking the subject exams even though the university has dropped them as a requirement, starting with applications for next fall. UC still requires scores from the main SAT test or its rival, the ACT.

Good subject test scores in any discipline will be a "plus factor" in a freshman application, similar to musical ability or club leadership, UC officials say. Not taking them or doing poorly won't eliminate anyone, they emphasize.

Many high school students and counselors contend that is a bewilderingly mixed message. If taking the subject tests helps some students, they ask, won't not taking them potentially hurt others in the zero sum game of admissions? Adding to the uncertainty is that several UC engineering and science programs recommend subject tests in math and science…

To help clear up confusion, UC officials have been explaining the reforms at meetings of high school counselors and administrators around the state. After a recent session in Anaheim, several counselors said they still felt unsettled. "They kept saying that the subject tests are not required but could help. What does that mean? It is a little nebulous," said Jared Fulton, acting assistant principal and a counselor at Los Amigos High School in Orange County. "You could argue both ways on what we heard."

Full article at http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-uc-apply-20111024,0,4217121.story

Confused? Maybe these guys can explain it:

There Goes the Baby: Fewer UC Undergrads in Late 2030s?

Given the chart above from today's Sacramento Bee, will there be fewer UC undergrads in the late 2020s and beyond? The original chart is at http://www.sacbee.com/2011/10/20/3990370_a3990291/california-birthrate-lowest-since.html Accompanying article is at http://www.sacbee.com/2011/10/20/3990370/california-birthrate-lowest-since.html

It's an interesting question:

Just sign us up

From today’s Inside Higher Ed comes some interesting news about a collective bargaining contract UC recently signed:

“We believe that if courses are moved online, they will most likely be the classes currently taught by lecturers,” reads a brief declaration against online education on the website of UC-AFT, the University of California chapter of the American Federation of Teachers... Now the California lecturers, who make up nearly half of the system’s undergraduate teaching teachers, believe they have used… bargaining power to score a rare coup. The University of California last week tentatively agreed to a deal with UC-AFT that included a new provision barring the system and its campuses from creating online courses or programs that would result in “a change to a term or condition of employment” of any lecturer without first dealing with the union. Bob Samuels, the president of the union, says this effectively gives the union veto power over any online initiative that might endangers the jobs or work lives of its members. “We feel that we could stop almost any online program through this contract,” Samuels told Inside Higher Ed.

…The union president says he thinks the university, which would be bound by the deal for the next three years, did not grasp the implications of the online provision. “We feel we got something that the university didn’t really understand,” he says. But the university says it grasps the implications of the pact quite well — and that Samuels and his cohort are the ones who seem to misunderstand it…

Full article at http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2011/10/11/university_of_california_lecturers_union_says_it_can_block_online_programs

Just sign here:

Update: The contract provision at issue is at http://ucaft.org/webfm_send/212

A Political Factoid for Today

Question: Can a UC campus foundation give money to ballot campaigns? If so, has it happened?

Answer: The UCLA Foundation has twice given money to campaigns for ballot propositions in the past decade. Both propositions involved money for higher ed, including UC. In 2004, the Foundation gave $57,087 to support Prop 55 – a bond measure for education which narrowly passed. In 2006, it gave $87,550 in support of Prop 1D – also an education bond measure but which passed by a respectable 56.9%. Other UC and CSU foundations have made similar contributions.

You can find the contribution information by going to http://www.followthemoney.org/ and typing “UCLA Foundation” in the search option. Election results are available at http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/sov/2006_general/measures.pdf

and

http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/sov/2004_primary/vote_summaries.pdf