Listen to (Partial) Audio of Afternoon Regents Session: 5-16-12

The Regents met in Sacramento on May 16, 2012.  Sacramento was chosen so they could lobby legislators after the meeting.  The morning session was interrupted by a demonstration.  At that time, the Regents went to another location and moved to the closed sessions on the agenda below, presumably while the room was cleared.  The intent was to resume the open part of the meeting after the room was cleared.  The morning session up to the demonstration has been separated posted (the prior post today).

Because items were taken out of order as a result of the demonstration, it was unclear when the public session would resume.  Yours truly was able to make a partial audio of the afternoon session.  The full afternoon session will be posted when the recording becomes available from the Regents’ office.

At the point where the recording resumes, the Regents are discussing the state budget.  There are calls for a need to consider what happens if the governor’s tax initiative doesn’t pass.  Several Regents note that there was discussion of drastic options in the report of the UC Committee on the Future.  These options were not recommended but, it was argued, should be considered as a Plan B.  The Lt. Governor, who votes against all tuition increases, complained about reading about a proposed 6% tuition increases (which the Regents plan to lobby the legislature to “buy out”).  There was approval of a compensation package for the new UC-San Diego chancellor.  Regents stressed that the new chancellor was taking a pay cut relative to prior employment and that any increment to be paid above the current chancellor will come from private funds, not state funds.  However, the Lt. Governor voted against the package saying that in Hard Times such packages were not good “optics.”  The rest of the meeting was devoted to passing resolutions acknowledging departing Regents whose terms were up and retiring VP Bruce Darling.

Below is the agenda of the May 16, 2012 meeting and below that is a link to the partial afternoon audio:

University of California Regents Agenda 5-16-2012

8:30 am Committee of the Whole (public comment)

9:30am Committee on Oversight of the DOE Laboratories (open session)

9:45 am Committee on Educational Policy (open session)

9:50 am Committee on Finance (open session)

12:15 pm Lunch

1:15 pm Committee on Compensation (closed session)

1:30 pm Committee on Compensation (Regents only session)

1:45 pm Committee on Finance (Regents only session)

2:25 pm Board (Regents only session)

2:30 pm Committee on Compensation (open session)

3:00 pm Board (open session)

Audio Link to the Partial Recording of the Afternoon Session: