The legislative session ended August 31 with votes on Democratic and Republican versions of the budget that were known in advance not to have sufficient votes. Two thirds is required to pass a budget although there will be a proposition on the November ballot to reduce the requirement to a simple majority. Today, the governor held a press conference. Much of it was devoted to his insistence that a budget deal cannot be reached unless there is pension reform. A link to the press conference is provided below. However, the key point for UC is that we remain in danger of being swept into some broad statewide public pension changes. It remains unclear what the governor has as a bottom line in his demand for pension reform. Various deals have been signed with state employee unions that call for higher employee contributions and a two-tier plan for new hires. But apparently signing such contracts with state unions is not viewed by the governor as sufficient.
When asked if he is calling a special session on the budget - something he said he would do earlier - the governor indicated that he is not going to do so, at least now.
The governor said a variety of things in the press conference including macro prescriptions and interpretations regarding the economic policies of Germany, Britain, etc., which are best discussed elsewhere. Media representatives rarely question numbers put out by public officials and no such questions were asked at this news conference.
The press conference is available at:
Governor put a stop to UC Berkeley Chancellor spending $3,000,000 on consultants to do the work of his job when the work of the consultants can be done by the ethical world class faculty and staff. Slash the spending on consultants and make the funds available to students, faculty and staff.
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