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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