Listen to the Sept. 15, 2016 morning meeting of the Regents

We continue our new format for archiving Regents meetings. Under the new format, we first upload the audio recordings. Then – as we get a chance to listen to the recordings – we provide some highlights. In this post, we note some highlights of the Sept. 15 morning meeting. The recording can be heard by using the links at http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2016/09/listen-to-regents-meeting-of-sept-15.html.

The meeting began with public comments. Topics included treatment of graduate students including sexual harassment and the Piterberg case at UCLA, union issues, increased enrollment, and CalPIRG’s voter registration efforts. Public comments were followed by remarks of the UCSA president. There was a brief union demonstration. The Regents then turned to reports from the various committees that had met the day before (and the finance/investment committee that had met still earlier).

The finance report by Regent Makarechian repeated some of the debt concerns related to the pension fund and the 70% rule we discussed in an earlier post.* While it is appropriate for the Regents to look at such matters, we continue to warn that the discussion could get off track and further threaten the already-degraded pension plan. Generally, the discussion seems to veer into confusion between accounting methodology and the actual eventual results of the fund. Here are two links to further discussion:

http://employmentpolicy.org/page-1775968/4254643

http://employmentpolicy.org/page-1775968/4271919

At the earlier meeting of the governance committee, there had been confusion about the post-Katehi rule that senior execs should serve on no more than two outside boards. Apparently, the confusion was cleared up overnight and now it is said that the new limit applies to all senior execs – not just new hires – except for four senior execs that are currently on three boards. (They have been “grandfathered” in.)

The investment committee also got hung up on pension finance issues mentioned above. Again, this matter will have to be monitored in future meetings to avert more damage.

There was a report by the California secretary of state about efforts to register college students. It was followed by a presentation from UCLA about its finances.

---

*http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2016/09/listen-to-regents-committee-on.html