Look for slow leaks in the next few weeks (about the budget)

Usually, the month of December is characterized by slow leaks of items that will be in the governor's proposed budget, due in early January. In fact, given the time needed to put the budget together, officials have to have a pretty good idea of what it will be by now. However, the governor has been in Paris until recently at the climate conference. So we may be a bit delayed this year in leaking. But it will come.

The Bureaucratic Incompetence Interpretation at UC-Merced

Given the recent mayhem in San Bernardino, the stabbing incident at UC-Merced in early November has been pushed from the national headlines. But not entirely, as will be noted below. Not surprisingly, it still is newsworthy in the local Merced area.* However, beyond the local news, various conservative news media allege a cover up of the UC-Merced incident, i.e., that it was really terrorism. The allegation arose shortly after the event** and continues to the present.*** 

Shortly after the UC-Merced incident, the local sheriff indicated that the student perpetrator was not a terrorist – presumably meaning someone acting out of religious and/or political beliefs. It was instead due to the mental issues of someone angry about being rejected from a study group. This interpretation was based on a manifesto the stabber left behind. The document was reportedly slated to be released a few days after the incident.**** Put another way, the Merced incident was similar to the incident at UC-Santa Barbara in May 2014 where the perpetrator killed people out of anger at not having a girlfriend. In that case, the killer left behind a manifesto “explaining” his motives.

In contrast, the UC-Merced manifesto hasn’t been released, although there have been various news reports since the incident that somehow interpret what is allegedly in it. At least one blogsite has filed a public documents request which has been rejected. See below:

…In pursuit of the story PipeLineNews.org LLC filed a formal CA Public Documents Act request asking to be provided with an un-redacted copy of Mr. Mohammad’s manifesto. This morning we received the following reply:

“Upon review, we have concluded that the information you have requested is integral to an ongoing investigation. The disclosure of it at this time would endanger the successful completion of that investigation. Therefore we are denying your request at this time…”

Source:
http://www.pipelinenews.org/2015/dec/10/uc-merced-jihad-investigation-now-on-fed-lockdown.html

 

Yours truly suggests that the conspiracy/terrorism interpretation could be quickly put to rest if the UC-Merced police would simply release the manifesto (and whatever other relevant documents there are). Surely the UC-Merced police have a copy or could get one from the Merced sheriff. The local sheriff shortly after the event said, "We had an upset teenager that was upset because he got kicked out of a study group."**** Given that official view – no terror conspiracy/just individual mental problems – a view which has not changed in any news report since, there remains only the Galanter hypothesis (see above) as to why the manifesto has not been released, even without a public document request. With all the calls for “transparency” in public matters, not honoring the request seems like bureaucratic incompetence.

====

*http://www.mercedsunstar.com/news/local/education/uc-merced/article49067410.html  and http://abc30.com/news/search-warrant-says-ucm-attacker-sat-in-silent-day-of-attack/1118558/

**http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/11/11/uc-merced-stabber-had-isis-flag-among-his-belongings-report-says/

***http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/12/10/with-spotlight-on-san-bernardino-yet-more-questions-about-college-knife-attack/  Excerpt: …Yet, more than a month after the Nov. 4 attack at University of California Merced, local and federal authorities continue to insist that Faisal Mohammad, 18, carried out the vicious attack because he'd been banished from a study group. (John) Price, whose son Byron Price, a 31-year-old construction manager for the family business who was working nearby and was stabbed when he heroically intervened, suspects the White House's reluctance to identify acts of radical Islamic terror has trickled down to investigators who are still probing the Merced attack…

****http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/11/07/campus-stabber-manifesto-included-praise-for-allah-plan-for-beheading/

*****http://abc7news.com/news/coroner-finds-manifesto-on-uc-merced-stabbing-suspect/1069552/  

Did you get stuck with CalPERS long-term care insurance?

Normally, UC employees are not covered in any way by CalPERS. But when CalPERS offered long-term care insurance, UC employees - since they worked for the state - were eligible to take out policies. Some UC folks did, thinking that CalPERS insurance would continue to feature modest premiums. But then CalPERS jacked up the rates offering policy holders a choice of paying the jacked up rates, dropping their coverage (and thus losing what they had been paying for), or accepting a substantially cut down policy. Not surprisingly, litigation ensued. As the article below indicates, it continues its slow pace through the judicial system:

A lawsuit seeking to reverse hefty rate hikes for some CalPERS long-term care programs recently moved closer to receiving class-action status, strengthening prospects that a single case will cover up to 150,000 policyholders. A tentative decision by Judge Jane L. Johnson late last month certified the case as a class-action matter. Then, after lengthy debate in her Los Angeles County courtroom, she allowed both sides time to file written arguments ahead of her final decision. CalPERS lawyers have until Dec. 21 to file their arguments. Lawyers with three firms representing the plaintiffs must respond by Jan. 15. Johnson will issue a final decision in late January or early February, said Stuart Talley, one of the six attorneys suing CalPERS...

Full story at http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/the-state-worker/article49258410.html

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/the-state-worker/article49258410.html#storylink=cpy

Pay by the Piece at Rutgers?

But you can work from home!

With the advent of Google Scholar and other metrics for faculty productivity, advancing one’s career as a professor is much more of a numbers game than it used to be. Still, the traditional system of peer review in hiring, tenure and promotion decisions has retained a good deal of nuance. Scholars in the same field as those they’re evaluating know that while one project may not be as prestigious as another, for example, a good degree of academic innovation might be worth a little professional risk. But is that system under threat? Full-time faculty members at Rutgers University at New Brunswick say that it may be, in light of the university’s contract with a faculty productivity monitoring company called Academic Analytics.
Rutgers professors say they don't need the system, which is based on a patented algorithm for measuring faculty productivity, and that what little data they’ve been able to obtain to so far include some serious errors. On Monday, the faculty of the School of Arts and Sciences will vote on a faculty union-backed resolution asking the university not to use Academic Analytics data in personnel and curricular decisions, and to give faculty members access to data collected by the company...

Full story at https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/12/11/rutgers-professors-object-contract-academic-analytics

http://www.academicanalytics.com/

The 300 Mystery Continues

If you have been following our saga of the mysterious apparent renaming of 300 UCLA Medical Plaza, all we can say is that the mystery continues. It appears that there may be a new name under a covering over the platform erected around the entrance.

Just one of those mysteries of life that you have to love:

Latest Cash Report

The latest state controller's cash report for the first five months of the 2015-16 fiscal year is out. It shows more cash has arrived as revenue than was forecast back when the budget was enacted. That's the good news. It is also not entirely a surprise since Gov. Brown tends to push the legislature to use conservative revenue forecasts in order to hold back spending.

When you look at the three big taxes, however, it appears that only the highly progressive personal income tax is running ahead of forecast values. The sales tax and the corporate tax are below forecast levels. That result suggests that good things are happening to incomes of those at the top of the income distribution (whose payments drive the income tax) but not so much for the rest. Note that even in a period when the stock market has not been shooting up, it is possible for capital gains revenue to come in based on earlier appreciation.

You can find the cash report at http://sco.ca.gov/Files-ARD/CASH/05_November_2015.pdf

As we rush to come up with a new and inferior pension tier...

...The political process meanwhile moves along independent of what UC does or doesn't do. There could be a mandate for still another tier on the state ballot. Yet we are rolling ahead to come up with a hastily-designed pension tier effective July 2016 that could be overridden a few months later. Yes, it takes a lot of money to get a proposition on the ballot and then campaign for it. But it could happen, particularly if some billionaire sugar daddy takes an interest in such a proposition:

From the State Worker blog of the Sacramento Bee: (Excerpt)

California pension overhaul advocates move forward after Kamala Harris issues analyses

BY JON ORTIZ

California moved one step closer to a public retirement fight after the state issued official summaries for two pension-change ballot proposals on Thursday – and for the first time neither labor unions nor the measures’ proponents griped that the language was politically slanted or inaccurate.

“It’s not the most positive way to describe the initiative,” said Chuck Reed, the former San Jose mayor who is backing the proposal, “but a least it meets the legal requirement to be accurate.”

Union spokesman Steve Maviglio said his clients wouldn’t criticize the language, but predicted that if a measure reaches the November 2016 ballot, “We’ll throw the kitchen sink at it.”

One proposal would put state and local employees who first join a public pension system on Jan. 1, 2019, or later into 401(k)-style retirement savings plans that guarantee fixed contributions from employers instead of guaranteed retirement payments by government agencies.

The second plan would cap the amount of money government employers could pay for new hires’ retirement benefits to a certain percentage of their salary. For most new employees, employers could contribute no more than 11 percent of wages, or a maximum of 13 percent for police, firefighters and other public safety workers...

Full story at http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/the-state-worker/article49033965.html