Details, Details - Part 2

We noted a few days back that the details of the governor's May Revise budget proposal for UC were not available. Some details have now been released on the Dept. of Finance website. There is a general fund cutback for UC proposed of $23.6 million and a special fund cut of $79.5 million. The Regents were told that about half of that general fund cut on the website is for labor education programs. That particular cut is a bit odd since the heavily-Democratic legislature tends to like such labor programs. Really old timers will recall that back in the Schwarzenegger era, the governor kept trying to cut out the labor programs. But that was in the era when it was possible in California to elect a Republican governor.

Source: https://ebudget.ca.gov/budget/2024-25MR/#/Department/6440.

Although more details on what is involved for UC are not up on the Dept. of Finance website, CalMatters managed to get more information which can be summarized as the death of the UC compact with the governor. The CalMatters report seems at odds with what the Regents were told. The compact was already reeling in January when the promised 5% budget increase for this coming July 1 was cancelled and then promised for a year later. We pointed out at the time that the governor cannot actually make such promises since the legislature has to approve what is done, year by year. Now, even the original promise is gone, although no one quite said that to the Regents. (We will separately cover the Regents item on the budget, but the Regents were given a more positive spin on what seems to be the proposal.) CalMatters reports a $125 million cut from the base, i.e., well more than what is shown above, on July 1, promised (there's that word again!) to be restored a year later plus 2%. See:

https://calmatters.org/education/higher-education/2024/05/california-budget/.

The Regents were given numbers that seem to square with the CalMatters version, albeit - as noted - with a different spin. But the fact that there is one thing on the official website and something else being given out separately suggests that the governor's budget people are still formulating what was presented as a finished proposal. The proposal seems instead to be a work in progress.

All this ambiguity will have to be worked through at the legislature and ultimately the budget will be enacted there. The governor has a line-item veto which hasn't been used much of late because deals have been made with the legislature.