Starving the UC Budget Link Roundup, WTF Edition

Everyone knows by now that the University of California is undergoing a major budget crisis --- at least that is what the UC leadership want to claim. The total budget for the UCs runs at approximately 19 Billion dollars --- about 3 Billion of which usually comes from the state and which the state is cutting down to 2.63 Billion for 2009-2010. (link)

As protesters at various levels within the UC, from students to staff to faculty, have pointed out, those cuts don't look like a lot when figured into the overall operating budget, especially considering so much of the cuts are going where they directly hurt students the most (besides the fee increases, courses usually taught by adjuncts are being cut completely and those by tenured faculty are being reorganized into large lecture classes. I hear things about how my former department, for example, is trying to figure out the feasibility of switching upper division courses into large lecture format with TAs, and eliminating TAs from the lower-division courses. Imagine, if you please, a Shakespeare course in the largest auditorium you can find graded solely by scantrons and clickers! The mind boggles.).

The UC administration, on its part, argues in a PDF titled "The UC Budget Myths and Facts" (I can't find a direct link, see the download page here) that most of these revenues are restricted and can't be transferred across categories, or, as it so bluntly sums up, "A federal grant for laser beam research can't be used to fund a deficit in the English department." As if English departments, which funnel large numbers of students through the university and have low operating expenses are the problem here.

Having drummed up a huge level of anxiety across the state for months now, garnered numerous national headlines and attention from all the major news sources, the UC --- lead by President Mark Yudoff, about whom I have ranted already here --- announced a tiered system of furloughs:

UC President Mark Yudof has proposed using the following formula to close an $813 million gap in state funding.
40 percent -- Campus layoffs and program cuts statewide
25 percent -- Student fee increases
25 percent -- Employee furloughs
10 percent -- Restructuring debt and other cost controls
Yudof's plan for furlough days would be progressive, meaning lower-paid employees would experience a lower percentage of furlough days and lower percent of lost income compared to high wage earners. Here's Yudof's proposal:
$40,000 and under -- 11 furlough days -- 4 percent of income
$40,001-$46,000 -- 13 furlough days -- 5 percent of income
$46,001-60,000 -- 16 furlough days -- 6 percent of income
$60,001-$90,000 -- 18 furlough days -- 7 percent of income
$90,001-$180,000 -- 21 furlough days -- 8 percent of income
$180,001-$240,000 -- 24 furlough days -- 9 percent of income
$240,000 and above -- 26 furlough days -- 10 percent of income
Source: UC Office of the President

These cuts and furloughs have also garnered campus protest, although not nearly enough. Is it any surprise this is coming over the summer, when the only students here are taking 4 and 5 intensive summer courses per session so that they can afford to graduate?

So I'm looking at this whole situation, knowing that the majority of the regents were appointed by our Republican Governor Arnold, and looking at the appointment of Yudoff, who some people argued at the time deserved his enormously bloated salary because he was brought in to do the unenviable job of being a hatchet man (hatcheting who, I'd ask now, because the majority of the top-level positions he promised to eliminate never got eliminated), I say, I'm looking at this whole situation and wondering exactly how much of a conspiracy is going on here.

Is this just a classic instance of the Republican playbook for privatization, or maybe following Grover Norquist's plan to starve the beast until government is small enough to drown in the bathtub? Was all this strategized out long in advance? I mean, I know Republican ideology is that only people who can pay for things for themselves are worthy of being supported in any way and that paying for services is better than public services, but this way of thinking is so foreign to me I can't understand why anyone would want. Especially for a public university system. Wealthy Republicans in CA who don't want the stink of public school on em have Stanford and USC in arm's reach if that's what they're after.

After all, no sooner did the Regents vote Yudoff his emergency powers (maybe this is the Bush 9-11 playbook) and he implemented these furloughs and cuts and student fee hikes, this and this were announced:

On the same July day that the UC Board of Regents cut $813 million from UC budgets - setting in motion pay cuts, layoffs and campus cutbacks - the board quietly approved pay raises, stipends and other benefits for more than two dozen executives.

"These are outrageous actions, taken at the same time as UC has been pleading poverty, giving layoff notices, forcing staff and faculty to take furloughs and hinting at more student fee increases," said library assistant Kathy Renfro, chairwoman of the UC Berkeley Labor Coalition.

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New positions have also been created at UCSF - "chief quality officer" and "vice chancellor of research" - with potential salaries between $239,700 and $420,100, plus benefits.

On July 16, the regents also approved requests from other campuses to pay new deans and vice chancellors higher salaries than their predecessors had earned, on grounds that this was needed to attract the brightest leaders. The regents referred to the changes as "re-slotting," rather than as raises.

and then this too:

The cash-strapped University of California - forced to lay off employees, cut pay and offer fewer classes because of deep cuts in state funding - has now agreed to lend the state nearly $200 million.

Seriously.

In turn, the state will pay UC back over three years with 3.2 percent interest and will use the money specifically to help UC get its bulldozers moving again on several stalled capital projects at eight of its 10 campuses across the state.

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To get around the problem, UC took cues from other agencies such as Bay Area Toll Authority and Solano County. With better credit ratings than the state, the agencies borrowed money themselves in the public markets. They loaned the money to the state, which gave the money right back to them to pay for voter-approved infrastructure projects.

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Building plans

UC will lend $199.8 million to the state, which in turn will use the money to pay for voter-approved construction projects at UC campuses. In brief, here is how UC will spend the money:

UCSF: New classrooms and expansion of telemedicine services at the Parnassus campus and at San Francisco General Hospital. $32.4 million.

UC Davis: New four-story Telemedicine Resource Center. $35.1 million.

UC Santa Cruz: New five-story Biomedical Sciences Facility - $64.4 million - and a new Digital Arts Facility - $1 million.

UCLA: Expanded telemedicine services and medical facilities. $19.2 million.

UC Irvine: New biology, engineering and computer science equipment. $6.2 million.

UC Riverside: Equipment for a new science and technology building. $4.6 million.

UC San Diego: New medical training center - $32.7 million - plus expanded telemedicine services and new equipment for a music center. $1.6 million.

UC Santa Barbara: Education and social sciences equipment. $2.6 million.

If you wanted to be head of the largest and most expensive medical facility on the West Coast, Mr. Yudoff, why don't you just spin the damn things off to be completely private (see the dark blue part of the pie chart) and leave us poor students and teachers alone? You can run things as corporate-AIG-style as you want. But the true heart of education is the interaction of student and teacher. I don't see any difference between an 800-student lecture on Shakespeare and watching Shakespeare clips at home on YouTube. Oh wait, yes I do. YouTube won't cost undergrads 9 grand a year.