The Bears reported a deficit of approximately $22 million in fiscal 2016 and will experience comparable bleeding this year… The crunch is largely due to $18 million in annual interest-only payments that are required to service the debt for the Memorial Stadium renovation and Simpson training center project. The task force’s report noted that even if the Bears were to downsize to 14 teams (the NCAA minimum)… the savings might be limited. Operational and capital expenses could be trimmed by an estimated $12 – $15 million, but the lost philanthropy within athletics and across campus would likely be momentous.

Read full article [here].
by Jon Wilner, The San Jose Mercury News.

Posted: June 5th, 2017, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

UC Berkeley’s Chancellor’s Task Force on Intercollegiate Athletics released its report Monday and could not reach a consensus regarding cutting any of Cal’s sports teams. In the report, the task force recommended an external review of Cal Athletics’ finances and structure, focusing on potential cuts to administrative expenses which are “not directly related to sports programs.” Cal Athletics has come under fire in recent years for its large deficit, which stood at about $22 million in fiscal year 2016. The campus holds more than $400 million of debt after seismically retrofitting California Memorial Stadium and building the Simpson Center for Student-Athlete High Performance in 2012. The athletic deficit has compounded a campuswide fiscal crisis, during which campus administrators have scrambled in recent years to address a structural deficit of more than $100 million.

Read full article [here].
by Hooman Yazdanian, Austin Weinstein and Bobby Lee, The Daily Californian.

Posted: June 5th, 2017, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

Gov. Jerry Brown is withholding $50 million from UC in his budget proposal. State Sen. Ed Hernandez (D-Azusa) wants to amend the California Constitution so the Legislature controls funding for the UC Office of the President and can reshuffle the Board of Regents. And another state senator, Cathleen Galgiani (D-Stockton) suggests that any time UC pays a certain number of administrators more than the governor earns, it should face restrictions, including on its ability to raise tuition. All of this stems from a state audit — the eighth related to UC in four years — released in late April. It accused UC President Janet Napolitano’s office of maintaining a secret fund of $175 million. The audit also excoriated UC for paying administrators more than other public-sector employees in similar jobs, and accused Napolitano of interfering with surveys that campuses filled out as part of the audit.

Read full article [here].
by Karin Klein, Los Angeles Times.

Posted: June 5th, 2017, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

But a recent move by CSU affecting students transferring from community colleges threatens to undermine community college efforts to do the same. The culprit is Intermediate Algebra, a high-school level course of technical procedures that most college students will never use, either in college or in life. To meet the Intermediate Algebra standard, they are often required to take two years of remedial courses that don’t count for transfer credit at CSU. As a result, every year, more than 170,000 California community college students are placed into remedial math based on how well they do on a standardized test in algebra.

Read full article [here].
by Christopher Edley, Jr., EdSource.

Posted: June 5th, 2017, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

Peter Guber, minority owner of the Golden State Warriors and an entertainment industry executive, is among four people appointed Friday by Gov. Jerry Brown to the University of California Board of Regents… Former Bay Area Rep. Ellen Tauscher was also appointed. Now a strategic adviser for Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz, a law practice specializing in health care, Tauscher served in Congress from 1997 to 2009, and as the undersecretary for arms control and international security affairs for the State Department from 2009 to 2012. Also appointed were Maria Anguino, 38, of Riverside, and Lark Park, 47, of Sacramento. Park is the governor’s senior adviser for policy, a post she has had since 2015 after serving as his deputy legislative affairs secretary for four years.

Read full article [here].
by Michael Cabanatuan, The San Francisco Chronicle.

Posted: June 2nd, 2017, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

Riverside resident Maria Anguiano, a former UC Riverside vice chancellor and accountant, was appointed to the University of California Board of Regents, which oversees the UC system. Anguiano, 38, was one of four board picks announced Friday, June 2, by Gov. Jerry Brown’s office. The state Senate must confirm the appointments, which are unpaid… Varner said Anguiano not only knows how the UC Office of the President works, from the five years she spent working there, but she knows UC Riverside from the inside as well… As chief finance officer at Minerva Project, she has seen how technology can help lower a college’s costs and other ideas that may also work for the UC system, she said. “A lot of what being a regent is about is accountability and asking good questions of the decisions that are being made,” Anguiano said.

Read full article [here].
by Alicia Robinson, The Press-Enterprise.

Posted: June 2nd, 2017, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

An investigation into outgoing Chancellor Nicholas Dirks’ misuse of public funds, which revealed he failed to pay $4,990, cost the university a total of $57,671 to carry out — more than 10 times the cost of the misused funds — according to invoice documents obtained by The Daily Californian. In order to obtain this information, Public Interest Investigations, Inc., investigated over five months, from May to September 2016, for a total of 279 billed hours at $200 an hour. In addition to billed hours, Public Interest Investigations, Inc., included receipts for airfare, parking, restaurants, Lyft rides and hotels used by Keith Rohman, president of Public Interest Investigations, Inc., as he traveled back and forth from Los Angeles to Oakland.

Read full article [here].
by Audrey McNamara, The Daily Californian.

Posted: May 30th, 2017, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

The University of California will no longer pay for its governing board members to throw themselves dinners and parties after a Chronicle report showed that the regents regularly billed the university for their festivities. Longtime Regent Richard Blum, a wealthy financier and former chairman of the board, said the policy change was his idea. After reading The Chronicle’s story Sunday, Blum said he called Napolitano and suggested it. “I said, ‘Janet, it’s not worth the aggravation. Let’s have the regents pay for their own dinners,’” Blum told The Chronicle. “I just called Janet and said, ‘Look, for the amount of what it costs to have a dinner, let’s have everyone pay for their own dinner. And if they can’t pay, I’m happy to pick it up.’”

Read full article [here].
by Nanette Asimov and Melody Gutierrez, San Francisco Chronicle.

Posted: May 29th, 2017, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

The night before the University of California Board of Regents voted to raise student tuition to help cash-strapped campuses, they threw themselves a party at the luxury Intercontinental Hotel in San Francisco and billed the university. The tab for the Jan. 25 banquet: $17,600 for 65 people, or $270 a head… “These types of dinner events look really, really bad, and they give the appearance that (Napolitano) is buying the support of the regents,” said Jamie Court, president of the good-government advocacy group Consumer Watchdog… UC policy prohibits reimbursements for “entertainment expenses that are lavish or extravagant” and limits dinners to $81 a person… Assemblywoman Catharine Baker, R-San Ramon, said more information is needed about how the regents and Napolitano’s office are spending money.

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

Posted: May 28th, 2017, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

Some of the biggest declines have been in the University of California system, which has long been the most economically diverse place in elite higher education. On the San Diego campus five years ago, 46 percent of freshmen received Pell grants. Last year, the share had dropped to 26 percent. When I first saw that number in The Times database, I figured it was a typo. It wasn’t. The United States is investing less in college education, at the same time that the globalized, digital economy has made that education more important than ever. Gaps between college graduates and everyone else are growing in one realm of society after another, including unemployment, wealth and health. Given these trends, the declines in state funding are stunning. It’s as if our society were deliberately trying to restrict opportunities and worsen income inequality.

Read full article [here].
by David Leonhardt, The New York Times.

Posted: May 25th, 2017, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.