Education advocates today began the process to place on the ballot a tax on oil extraction to fund education. The initiative proposes that California put a 15 percent tax on each barrel of oil extracted from the state, raising $3.6 billion a year at current prices. Revenue from the tax would be divided among the state’s public education systems, with K-12 schools receiving 30 percent of the funds, community colleges getting 48 percent of the funds and the California State University and University of California each getting 11 percent.

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by Laurel Rosenhall, The Sacramento Bee.

Posted: March 14th, 2011, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

Ohio’s controversial bill to weaken collective bargaining rights for public workers in the state is opposed by more than 9 out of 10 people in a new online poll. The results come the same weekend as tens of thousands of pro-union protesters coordinated a huge rally in Wisconsin over similar legislation there. The BizPulse Survey conducted this past week reveals that 92 percent of the respondents said they did not support Ohio’s efforts to limit collective bargaining for public workers. Of those, 75 percent said it was an attack on middle class workers, while 17 percent said it simply won’t solve anything.

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by DBJ Staff, The Dayton Business Journal.

Posted: March 13th, 2011, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

What’s gotten ignored in the debate about public employee unions is the billions of dollars lost by pension funds when Wall Street investment banks sold fund administrators the very same toxic derivatives that the banks simultaneously bet against with their own bank funds. California’s public employee pension fund, CalPERS, the nation’s largest pension fund, lost more than $100 billion as a result of Wall Street’s shenanigans. Notice who got bailed out and was made whole? Sure wasn’t pension funds, homeowners, small businesses or laid-off workers.

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by Carol Benham, The Lompoc Record.

Posted: March 13th, 2011, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

Describing Yee’s charge as "disinformation," the Chronicle denies Crane supports ending collective bargaining and quotes Crane accusing Yee of resorting to the "Big Lie." But while the Chronicle is focusing on a February 27 op-ed by Crane, the fact is that there is ample documentation for Yee’s accusation that the current Regent opposes collective bargaining. And Yee is also right that Crane should not be confirmed.

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by Randy Shaw, BeyondChron.

Posted: March 9th, 2011, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

Why is there so much scrutiny on UC Berkeley administrative decision-making, when all energy could be directed towards the cuts coming out of Sacramento? The concrete situation we are experiencing on our campus and systemwide has as much to do with the administration’s prioritization of funds as it does with cuts at the state level. Operational Excellence – our university’s internal restructuring program – comes out of last year’s $3 million contract with consulting firm Bain & Company. Not only is it irresponsible for our administration to pay out that much in contracting costs in these conditions but also the move emphasizes their utter inability to "administer" the campus (the job they claim requires a six-figure salary) as well as their exclusion of those most affected by the restructuring from important decision-making processes.

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by Marika Iyer and Alex Barnett, The Daily Californian.

Posted: March 8th, 2011, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

State pension systems had an estimated funding ratio of 69% for fiscal year 2010, ending June 30, up from 65% for fiscal year 2009, according to Wilshire Associates, a Santa Monica, Calif.-based investment-consulting firm. But pension plans remain well below the 95% estimated average funding ratio for 2007… For most of the pension plans, figures reflect funding through June. Since then, robust market returns have likely bolstered pension plans’ assets, Mr. Foresti said.

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by Jeannette Neumann, The Wall Street Journal.

Posted: March 7th, 2011, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

Yee, who is running for mayor of San Francisco, is hoping that the Senate will reject Crane’s appointment. Crane, a San Francisco Democrat who served as economic policy advisor to Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, has been a proponent of pension-reform ideas at the state and local level. Schwarzenegger appointed Crane to the Regents shortly before his term ended. The state Senate must vote to approve the appointment some time this year, otherwise Crane will be off the board… In his letter, Yee hoped to scuttle Crane’s appointment before the next Regents’ meeting, which is scheduled for March 15.

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by Elizabeth Lesly Stevens, The Bay Citizen.

Posted: March 7th, 2011, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

[T]here’s simply no evidence that state pensions are the current burden to public finances that their critics claim. Pension contributions from state and local employers aren’t blowing up budgets. They amount to just 2.9 percent of state spending, on average, according to the National Association of State Retirement Administrators. The Center for Retirement Research at Boston College puts the figure a bit higher at 3.8 percent. Though there’s no direct comparison, state and local pension contributions approximate the burden shouldered by private companies. The nonpartisan Employee Benefit Research Institute estimates that retirement funding for private employers amounts to about 3.5 percent of employee compensation. Nor are state and local government pension funds broke… if the assets in state and local pension plans were frozen tomorrow and there was no more growth in investment returns, there would still be enough money in most state plans to pay benefits for years to come.

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by Kevin G. Hall, The Sacramento Bee.

Posted: March 6th, 2011, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

Somehow we have come to think of our government the way somatoparaphrenia patients think about their arms or legs. It is not us. It just takes our money and wastes it on foolishness. It is as if the government has nothing to do with the people, and its expenditures are no more beneficial to its citizens than when a boatload of Somali pirates spend their bloody ransom on drugs and whores… Look, I’ve been arbitrating labor cases for 20 years. I know something about incompetence. I also know something about waste, fraud, nepotism, featherbedding, laziness, corruption and stupidity. And what I know is you don’t have to go to the public sector to find them. They are evident in malignant abundance in private enterprise as well. For every Department of Motor Vehicles, there is an equally infuriating private phone company. For every bloated public bureaucracy, there is an equally sclerotic corporate structure.

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by Barry Goldman, The Los Angeles Times.

Posted: March 6th, 2011, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

Crane, a Democrat who served as former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s economic policy adviser and who has been an active proponent of pension reform at the state and local level, suggested that most public employees didn’t need collective bargaining powers, since protections under the Civil Service Act already guarantee job protections… To punish Crane, Yee vowed to scuttle his appointment to the University of California Board of Regents. Schwarzenegger tapped Crane as a regent shortly before leaving office. The state Senate

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by Elizabeth Lesly Stevens, The Bay Citizen.

Posted: March 4th, 2011, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.