More Info on the Rejection of the Anderson Self-Sufficiency Plan

The systemwide Academic Senate rejection of the UCLA Anderson School’s self-sufficiency funding plan appears in the letter you can read at the link below.  A prior post on this blog indicated that there was a rejection.  However, the Coordinating Committee on Graduate Affairs (CCGA) defends its rejection as a technical interpretation of existing UC policy and indicates that it recommends that the policy be re-examined to cover situations such as Anderson’s.  On the other hand, it expresses a variety of reservations about the Anderson plan that seem independent of whatever policy may be in place.  

Since the Regents are meeting soon and have set aside a day for a "retreat" format, it is possible that someone will raise the Anderson plan and its rejection at that meeting.

Meanwhile, click on the link below for the CCGA statement:

Open publication - Free publishing - More privatization

The Regents Shouldn't be Shocked If Tax Problems Arise from the UCLA Hotel

As our previous blog post noted, final approval of the UCLA Hotel Super-Grande is to be rubber stamped at the Regents Sept. 11.  The business plan was previously approved in July (after being deemed unacceptable in March) so this approval is just for the architecture.  At Regents meetings and numerous other venues, the Regents and UCLA have been given public notice of the tax problems potentially embedded in the hotel plan.  There was an editorial on the subject in the LA Business Journal previously.  And this week there is an op ed in the same newspaper.  You can read an excerpt in italics below.

The problem is that the business plan doesn’t work without what appears to be commercial business to fill the 250 hotel rooms planned.  But such business is not permitted giving the financing plans and in any case would be subject to federal and local taxes.  If the hotel doesn’t cover costs, the subsidy it will need will be coming out of other campus resources – although, as we have also noted, is likely to be hidden because of the blending of this project with others.  Nonetheless, a cost is a cost, however hidden. 

No Room for Tax-Free Hotel at UCLA

Laura Lake, co-president of Save Westwood Village Inc., a business-community alliance to revitalize Westwood, September 3, 2012

For years, UCLA has operated hotels that compete with local hotels. The commercial hotels pay the city’s 14 percent hotel tax and federal corporate income tax; UCLA’s do not. Now, UCLA wants to expand its hospitality empire with a $162 million, seven-story, 250-room luxury inn, to be called the Luskin Hotel and Conference Center, and eliminate 754 parking spaces adjacent to Pauley Pavilion. The proposed hotel will charge $224 a night and, like other UCLA hotels, will neither pay the city hotel tax nor comply with federal requirements for a tax-exempt enterprise. Generally, rents from real estate property are excluded from federal “unrelated business income tax.” But there is an important exception: When rental of real property comes with personalized services such as maid or linen service, it is subject to federal unrelated business income tax… 

Full op ed at http://labusinessjournal.com/news/2012/sep/03/no-room-tax-free-hotel-ucla/.  The op ed notes the issue of local taxes, too. 

The Regents and UCLA are gambling that no one will notice and the tax man won’t come calling.  If he does, however, no one should be shocked.

Waiting for Details on the September 11-13 Regents Meeting

The Regents are meeting Sept. 11-13 at UC-San Francisco.  Below is the preliminary agenda – which includes the architectural plans for UCLA’s Hotel Super-Grande and an “Action Approval” for some plans related to Health Sciences at UCLA.  At the moment (7 am today), the detailed agenda items are not yet posted.

Tuesday September 11

1:00 pm Committee on Compliance and Audit (Regents only session)

1:10 pm Committee of the Whole - Public Comment (open session)

1:30 pm Committee on Compliance and Audit (open session)

3:00 pm Committee on Grounds and Buildings (open session) including:

GB3 Action Amendment of the Long Range Development Plan and Approval of Design Following Action Pursuant to California Environmental Quality Act, Luskin Conference and Guest Center, Los Angeles Campus and GB4 Action Approval of Preliminary Plans Funding, Teaching and Learning Center for Health Sciences, Los Angeles Campus

Wednesday, September 12

9:00 am Committee of the Whole: Board Retreat (open session - includes public comment session)

Public Comment Period (20 minutes), Opening Remarks, Balance Sheet Strategies, Business and Finance Strategies, Lunch Break, Enrollment-Tuition-Financial Aid Strategies, Other Potential Strategies, Academic Considerations, Next Steps, Close 

[Note the word "tuition" on the agenda and the fact that there is a public comment period before that item.  Should be an interesting morning.]

Thursday, September 13

8:30 am Committee of the Whole - Public Comment (open session)

9:30 am Committee on Long Range Planning (open session)

9:45 am Committee on Health Services (open session)

10:00 am Committee on Health Services (Regents only session)

10:40 am Committee on Finance (Regents only session)

11:20 am Committee on Compensation (Regents only session)

11:45 am Committee on Compensation (closed session)

12:15 pm Board (Regents only session)

12:30 pm Lunch

1:30 pm Committee on Compensation (open session)

2:00 pm Board (open session)

From http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/regents/regmeet/sept12.html

While we're awaiting for the full posting by the Regents - including the super-grande plans for you-know-what - let's have a little waiting music:

UCLA History: Union President Visits

Our Labor Day Photo Selection:

In the late 1940s, Ronald Reagan - then president of the Screen Actors Guild - attends a program at the new UCLA Institute of Industrial Relations (now the Institute for Research on Labor and Employment).

UCLA History: Clinic

LA City Councilwoman Rosalind Wyman, UCLA Chancellor Franklin Murphy, Marion Davies, LA County Supervisor Ernest Debs, and UCLA Med School Dean Dr. Stafford L. Warren at the groundbreaking of the new Marion Davies Children's Wing at UCLA Medical Center. October 7, 1960. [LAPL Collection]

The Approval of the Self-Sustaining MBA Seems to be Unsustainable

The Daily Bruin is reporting in an article dated 8/31/12 that the on-again-off-again move towards a “self sufficient” MBA program is off again:

A UC Academic Senate committee voted to suspend their review of the Anderson School of Management’s proposal to become financially self-supporting, according to a memo sent to the school today.  …The proposal passed the UCLA Legislative Assembly in June. To take effect, it needed to go through the UC Coordinating Committee on Graduate Affairs and the UC Office of the President. The graduate affairs committee voted 10-0-1 to halt the review.  Members of the committee decided to halt the review in part because the Anderson School does not meet the requirements to be a self-supporting program at the UC, according to the memo.  …The proposal will not be reviewed further until a new policy on self-supporting programs is put into place or the original policy is modified, the memo stated.

Full article at http://www.dailybruin.com/blog/timestamp/2012/08/ucla-anderson-schools-self-supporting-proposal-suspended-by-uc-committee

Seems like we've heard this song before:

UPDATE: Inside Higher Ed reports on the issue:
http://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2012/09/04/new-obstacle-ucla-b-schools-planned-self-sufficiency

Bill to Cut Tuition Goes Down the Drain

The bill sponsored by assembly speaker John Pérez that would close a corporate tax loophole with revenue dedicated to tuition cuts went down the drain last night.  An earlier post on this blog noted that a version of it had gotten through the assembly – despite needing a 2/3 vote.  (Pérez got an independent and one renegade GOP member to vote for it, giving him the 2/3.)  But getting 2/3 in the senate, despite all sorts of manipulations was not possible.

…(A) closely watched bill may have been too unwieldy to gain orbit. That was Assembly Speaker John Pérez's gambit for new corporate taxes to fund middle-class college scholarships. By Friday night, the bill had been rejiggered to earmark some of the expected corporate tax dollars for paying off K-12 school debts, to replace a planned timber tax, revive the Healthy Families health care plan for low-income families.  And those were just for starters -- as it may have helped keep some tobacco company taxes lower. Pérez, who worked virtually every angle on the bill, couldn't wrangle enough votes on the so-called mega deal. It officially died just after 1:00 a.m., one of only a few bills eligible for extra hours past the midnight deadline…

Full article at http://www.news10.net/capitol/article/207606/525/Big-bills-live-die-as-Legislature-adjourns

Readers of this blog will know that the same corporate tax loophole would be closed by a proposition on the state ballot in November, but the revenues under that proposition are not earmarked for tuition reduction.  Our earlier post on this bill is at:
http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2012/08/could-legislature-pass-last-minute-tax.html

Anyway, down the drain went the tuition bill, despite having the votes in one house of the legislature: