Listen to the Regents Morning Session of July 22, 2015

We finally are able to post the audio of the Regents morning session of July 22, 2015, the missing piece of our already-posted audios of the overall meeting of July 21-23. Again we note that the Regents refuse to archive their sessions for more than one year, so we provide this service by archiving the recordings indefinitely (as many other public jurisdictions do on their own). However, in order for yours truly to do the indefinite archiving, he has to record from the Regents file in real time, i.e., it takes one hour to record one hour of a meeting. Hence, posting is often delayed. In the case of this particular session, we did earlier post an excerpt of Lt. Gov. Newsom questioning about whether the data on efficiency cost saving included the inefficiency of the large UCPath cost overrun.*

The meeting began with a public comment session. At that session, the UC-Berkeley Faculty Association protested the Committee of Two deal on the pension, noting (as we have on this blog) that the supposed multi-year deal in fact has only one year’s worth of funding from the legislature (which wasn’t a party to the deal) with no guarantee of more. Other topics of speakers included professional school tuition, sexual harassment and assault policy, the definition of anti-Semitism, and equal pay for UC contractors.

After the public comment period, UC prez Napolitano gave a report including the eventual UC $15 minimum hourly wage announcement and a reference to the recent cyberattack at UCLA. Faculty rep Mary Gilly described the faculty advancement and evaluation system. There was also a Staff Assembly report. There was discussion of the above-mentioned UC efficiencies and cost savings followed by a report on the delayed and over-budget UCPath system. Newsom was not the only Regent to raise concerns about UCPath.

The Committee on Health Services then heard a presentation on a Rand Corp. report that suggested options for governance of the UC health systems, which included a recommended option. Basically, in pursuit of being more “nimble,” the recommended option would give the health systems more autonomy. It would create a separate board – not the current regental committee – to oversee health affairs. The current committee would be abolished. Varying views were expressed by Regents about the need for more autonomy. Apparently, decisions as to health governance are expected to be taken at the September meetings. Finally, a student rep to the Committee supported the Rand option but wanted a student voice to be somehow included.

You can hear the audio at the link below:

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*http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2015/08/lt-gov-newsom-raised-questions-about.html