University of California leaders voted Thursday to force 80 percent of the system’s 180,000 workers to take furloughs and pay cuts. Meanwhile, California State University officials are considering pay cuts and a second round of fee increases and enrollment reductions.

The measures are in response to the state’s economic crisis. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Legislature are struggling to close a $26 billion budget gap that is forcing deep cuts to education, health care and a welfare program. Combined, the CSU and UC piece of that is $1.2 billion.

The UC furlough plan would cut employee salaries 4 to 10 percent.

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by Sean Nealon, The Press-Enterprise.

Posted: July 17th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

It is cliche to say the higher education system is what created California as the Golden State, the land of aerospace and high-tech and easy living, but that doesn’t make it any less true. We have chosen to blow up the bridge behind us.

Professors aren’t being hired. Employees are being furloughed. The higher education system that once was the model for the nation and beyond is now becoming a cautionary tale.

With the latest and coming cuts, the educational assembly line will still crank out graduates, but fewer leaders. The line will move more quickly, with less time for polishing the product and much less time for research and development. The GOP legislators with their bumper-sticker approach to policy issues worry about businesses that might move out if taxes rise by tiny amounts. Do they worry about young scholars moving east and north?

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by The Editor, The Monterey County Herald.

Posted: July 17th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

Our plan would be simple. To meet Yudof’s savings targets, a number of employees would be laid off sufficient to save 8% of the payroll. The choices in staff cuts would be difficult, but they are necessary if the regents are unwilling to raise tuition further. Specific decisions on whom to lay off would be decentralized to campuses, and within campuses to schools or departments. In the case of tenured faculty, for better or worse, they have a good measure of protection. But if an entire unit is eliminated, tenured faculty within it can be fired. Thus, while tenure means that we cannot be fired for writing this Op-Ed article, the university can decide that it does not have the resources to have a law school. Those who remain would get full pay but be asked to pick up much of the slack by cutting out their least productive 8% to 10% of activities.

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by Robert Cooter and Aaron Edlin , The Los Angeles Times.

Posted: July 16th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

The University of California Board of Regents is expected to adopt a plan today to slash the UC system’s budget by $813 million. According to the Chron, the huge cuts, which include the elimination of college courses, were endorsed by a regents subcommittee yesterday, despite widespread criticism from top university officials, professors, and researchers. UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau warned that cutting so many classes will force students to take an extra half-year of courses just to graduate.

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by Robert Gammon, The East Bay Express.

Posted: July 16th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

…the depth of these cuts means we’re facing more than simply modifying Cal State’s approach to education; we’re looking at the potential wholesale abandonment of the master plan, California’s commitment to providing a college education to all its young people who qualify. Enrollment alone won’t take the hit, but it’s instructive to see the cuts in those terms: Cal State’s loss of $584 million is the equivalent of cutting 95,000 of the system’s 450,000 students. As a department chair, I spend day and night trying to determine the best places to slash our very modest teaching budget to balance the needs of students with the realities of decreasing resources. What can be sacrificed? What must we protect at all costs?

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by Vincent J. Del Casino Jr., The Los Angeles Times.

Posted: July 16th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

Californians expect a lot of services, including good public schools, inexpensive colleges and universities, beautiful parks, safe communities, clean air and water, reliable transportation, compassionate care for our elderly and disabled, and functional local governments. It is the duty of the governor and the Legislature to make every attempt to meet these expectations. So, let’s leave slogans behind and govern.

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by Noreen Evans, The Sacramento Bee.

Posted: July 16th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

University of California chancellors on Wednesday described in grim detail the effects of the state’s budget crunch on their 10 campuses as the UC Board of Regents moved to enact furloughs and pay cuts for employees… By the end of the next school year, UCSD’s student-faculty ratio will be approaching 40-1, Fox said. Class sizes are even worse at UCLA, where they will average 60 students, UCLA Chancellor Gene Block said… The regents were not ready to endorse a tax increase, but several said something must be done quickly – within the next year – to avert long-term damage to the university.

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by James P. Sweeney, San Diego Union-Tribune.

Posted: July 15th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

Student fees are going up $662 this fall at a time when salaries for top administrators have soared. Many UC employees are infuriated by recent high salary hires of senior administrators when up to 170,000 UC workers face mandatory furloughs and pay cuts. Although UC’s president said all salaries are being frozen or cut during this budget crisis, State Senator Leland Yee (D-San Francisco) insisted top administrators are out of control, handing out hundreds of thousands of dollars in inflated bonuses and salaries to senior staff.

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by Staff, KTVU.

Posted: July 15th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

SCA 21, co-authored by State Senator Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, would strip the UC system of its autonomy and give state politicians power to directly affect UC policy rather than simply urge changes. However, the bill, which will require two-thirds of the state’s legislature’s approval before going to voters, appears unlikely to move forward while the state budget is of principal concern. "Everyone is focused on the budget at this time," said Adam Keigwin, chief of staff to Yee. SCA 21 has been pulled back into Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg’s rules committee after he had previously moved it forward to the Senate Education Committee.

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by Sarah Springfield, The Daily Californian.

Posted: July 15th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

"Disinvesting in the University of California is like eating our seed corn," astronomy Professor Sandra Faber of UC Santa Cruz told the regents. "The university is the most powerful economic engine in the state," but its future is in jeopardy because UC is already having trouble attracting and retaining the top-flight academics the university depends on, she said. One after another, UC’s 10 campus chancellors told the regents about brilliant professors being lured away by more lucrative salaries from other prestigious universities, while they’ve been forced to lay off or eliminate the positions of hundreds of employees.

Read full article [here].
by Nanette Asimov, The San Francisco Chronicle.

Posted: July 15th, 2009, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.