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Thursday, September 19, 2013

Listen to First Segment of Afternoon Session of UC Regents: 9-18-2013

Summary: The afternoon session began with a presentation by the new president of the UC Students Assn.  He described a program to find jobs for graduate students whose careers are currently limited by the loose labor market.  He described a program focused on prisons vs. UC, the details of which were not clear.  He favored an oil severance tax and also divestment from fossil fuels.  (Some listeners might find those causes somewhat in conflict; depends on how you look at them.)   

Much of the afternoon was then spent on budgetary issues.  Charts were shown indicating the volatility in tuition and a lag in faculty pay behind comparison institutions.  There was a lengthy statement by Gov. Brown which you can find at the YouTube link below.  However, his remarks dealt with pension funding, tuition, state budget processes, and related matters.

During this session, there was on-and-off discussion of pensions and pension funding.  There was a tendency in the discussion to separate pension costs from compensation.  Faculty rep Bill Jacobs tried to keep to the point that total compensation and pensions were part of the same issue. 

A plan to integrate employees of Children’s Hospital-Oakland into the UC pension was proposed, contingent on a deal to merge that hospital into UC-San Francisco.  Readers of this blog will know that yesterday’s presentation on the proposed merger suggested shaky “financials” at Children’s Hospital which might undermine the deal.  One Regent asked why UC would be putting forth the pension aspect of the merger when the merger itself was not scheduled until February (if it took place at all).  His question was not really answered.  (Note that the Regents will have a meeting in November at which time presumably more would be known about the “financials.”  As is often (too often) the case, however, proposals that are presented get approved.  And this one was approved.

This posting ends with the Committee on Finance.  We will post the rest of the afternoon session later.

A link to the audio for this portion of the afternoon session is at:

YouTube link for the governor’s budget remarks is below:
 

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