Howle’s audit, released Tuesday, asserted that the UC Office of the President paid excessive salaries and benefits to its top executives and did not disclose to the UC Board of Regents, the Legislature and the public $175 million in budget reserve funds that could have helped stave off a 2.5% tuition increase scheduled for this fall. Howle alleged in the audit and a letter to the governor and the Legislature that “the Office of the President intentionally interfered with our audit process.”
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by Patrick McGreevy and Teresa Watanabe, The Los Angeles Times.
Posted: April 27th, 2017, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
Napolitano’s office “accumulated more than $175 million in restricted and discretionary reserves that it failed to disclose to the [UC Board of] Regents and created undisclosed budgets to spend those reserve funds.” “It received significantly more funds than it needed” over a four-year period, “and asked for increases in future funding based on its previous years’ over-estimated budgets rather than actual costs.” “Its budgets were inconsistent and misleading … making it difficult to compare budgets from year to year. The UC president’s office “compensated its executives and administrative staff significantly more than their public sector counterparts” in state government and at the Cal State University system.Napolitano’s execs “intentionally interfered” with the audit by “inappropriately” forcing revision of campuses’ statements about the president’s office. The statements were initially critical, but were rewritten to make them positive.
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by George Skelton, Los Angeles Times.
Posted: April 27th, 2017, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
A day after the state auditor blasted the University of California for raising tuition while its administration sat on a secret $175 million reserve, Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon became the second member of UC’s governing Board of Regents to call for a reversal of the fee hike. In an interview, Rendon, who as speaker serves as an ex officio regent, said he would seek to undo a nearly 3 percent increase in UC tuition and fees approved for next fall, the university’s first in six years.
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by Alexei Koseff, The Sacramento Bee.
Posted: April 26th, 2017, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
Lt. Governor Gavin Newsom on Tuesday was one of those who appealed to the UC board of regents to reverse its tuition increase, which he called “unjust” in light of what the audit found. Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, D-Paramount, who also serves on the UC Board of Regents, shared a similar interest in transparency. In a statement, Rendon said the audit has “uncovered the same kind of budgetary misrepresentations and executive excess that we’ve seen before.” “There are many questions that need to be answered — and answered honestly,” he said in a statement he shared on Twitter. Assemblywoman Catharine Baker, R-Dublin, agreed with her Democratic colleagues and called for the UC to freeze its student tuition increases.
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by Luis Gomez, The San Diego Union-Tribune.
Posted: April 26th, 2017, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
The administration of the University of California system pays top workers salaries and benefits significantly higher than that of similar state employees, and failed to disclose to the Board of Regents and the public that it had $175 million in budget reserve funds while it was seeking to raise tuition, a state audit found Tuesday… Auditors said salaries paid to those in the president’s office are much higher than the pay of comparable positions in other state government jobs… For instance, an accounting manager’s maximum annual salary is $169,000 at UC compared to $156,000 for other state employees. An information system manager can make $258,000 with UC, but $150,000 with other state agencies.
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by Patrick McGreevy, The Los Angeles Times.
Posted: April 25th, 2017, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
Under the leadership of Janet Napolitano, the UC Office of the President amassed millions in the secret reserve funds in part by overestimating how much it needed to run the 10-campus university system — and then spending less than budgeted, the audit said. From 2012 to 2016, the office sought increased funding based on the inflated estimates, not actual spending, according to Howle. Howle also accused the university of interfering with the audit by inappropriately screening the confidential responses of campus administrators to her office’s survey, resulting in some answers being changed or deleted… The audit also found salaries within the Office of the President are significantly higher than those for comparable state employees, and that the UC headquarters offered job perks not seen in the public sector that totaled $21.6 million over the years audited.
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by Melody Gutierrez, The San Francisco Chronicle.
Posted: April 25th, 2017, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
UCPath was originally budgeted at $156 million but has already cost $327 million, and it’s expected to cost as much as $504 million before it’s finally completed. Announced in 2011 as part of the university’s “Working Smarter” initiative, the project was expected to save $100 million per year by replacing a collection of separate 30-year-old payroll systems for 10 campuses, five medical centers and UC central administration… What’s unsustainable is Californians’ confidence that the UC system is being efficiently run for the benefit of Californians. The UCPath project is proceeding with a blank check and no accountability. The problem may not be limited to payroll computers.
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by The Editorial Board, The Orange County Register.
Posted: April 21st, 2017, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
California State Auditor Elaine Howle called out CSU for failing to adequately explain the number of new management personnel, such as campus vice presidents, deans, supervisors and head coaches, as well as salary increases that far outstripped faculty and support staff… Total compensation for managers also grew by almost a quarter over those nine years, nearly double the rate of increase for other employees… “(I)t is important to recognize the CSU’s management staffing levels and administrative costs are lower than other similar higher education institutions both within California and nationally,” White wrote.
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by Alexei Koseff, The Sacramento Bee.
Posted: April 20th, 2017, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
The California State University system has increased its hiring of managers at a steeper rate than its hiring of other employees over the past 10 years, according to a new state audit. And in a report on the audit released on Thursday, the state auditor, Elaine M. Howle, wrote that the system could not sufficiently explain why it needed all the new managers, including deans, head coaches, and vice presidents, among other positions.
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by Fernanda Zamudio-Suaréz, The Chronicle of Higher Education.
Posted: April 20th, 2017, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
State and local support for higher education in Illinois plunged as the state’s lawmakers and governor were unable to reach a budget agreement and instead passed severely pared-down stopgap funding. Educational appropriations per full-time equivalent student in the state skidded 80 percent year over year, from $10,986 to $2,196. Enrollment in public institutions dropped by 11 percent, or 46,000 students. That situation proved to be enough of an outlier that it weighed down several key markers in the 2016 State Higher Education Finance report from the State Higher Education Executive Officers association, which is being released today.
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by Rick Seltzer, Inside Higher Ed.
Posted: April 20th, 2017, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
