Looking for something to worry about?

We now have the data on cash flows for the first month of the new fiscal year from the state controller. And revenues came in almost 10 percent below projections in the 2016-17 budget which we enacted only a few weeks ago.

Of course, one month does not a year make, particularly in regards to our highly seasonal tax base. But all of the big three taxes came in below forecast values: income, sales, and corporate. Sales taxes were 23.5% below projections and of the three key taxes, sales reflect consumption of the masses. In contrast, income taxes (which were below projections by 6.9%) reflect upper income folks.

Anyway, enjoy your summer. And if you want to worry, the controller's data are at http://sco.ca.gov/Files-ARD/CASH/01_July_2016.pdf.pdf. And if not:

They want to see it

Spending at the University of California’s Oakland headquarters has nearly doubled in recent years, and official staff counts vary by nearly 500 people, depending on who’s doing the counting.

So on Wednesday, state lawmakers authorized an audit of UC’s Office of the President to determine whether its $686 million annual budget — more than twice that of the Legislature — is money well spent.

The eight-month, $418,000 audit comes at the request of two influential assemblymen, Phil Ting, D-San Francisco, chairman of the budget committee, and Kevin McCarty, D-Sacramento, chairman of the budget subcommittee on education finance.

“As UC advocates for more state funding, and as it contemplates potential student tuition increases in the future, the Legislature needs a clearer picture of UC costs,” the lawmakers wrote to the chairman of the Joint Legislative Audit Committee, Assemblyman Freddie Rodriguez, D-Pomona (Los Angeles County), to ask the panel to conduct an audit.

UC’s regents are expected to raise tuition for fall 2017 for the first time since 2011. Based on that and a March audit revealing that UC admits thousands of higher-paying out-of-state students with lower grades and test scores than state residents as a way to raise cash, Ting said he wants to know how UC can become more efficient and enroll more Californians.

McCarty told the committee, “We don’t know where all the money is going.”

UC officials countered that they’ve been overwhelmed with six state audits in three years...

Full story at http://www.sfgate.com/education/article/With-tuition-heading-up-state-will-audit-UC-9135047.php

They seem insistent:

Texas

Professors who ban guns in their classrooms will be punished, UT lawyer says

By Lauren McGaughy  Dallas Morning Herald

AUSTIN — Three professors duking it out in court for the right to ban guns in their classrooms were told Monday they will be punished if they do, according to the latest legal back-and-forth prompted by Texas' new campus carry law.

"Faculty members are aware that state law provides that guns can be carried on campus, and that the president has not made a rule excluding them from classrooms," attorneys representing the University of Texas at Austin and Attorney General Ken Paxton wrote in a legal brief filed Monday. "As a result, any individual professor who attempts to establish such prohibition is subject to discipline."

The warning was meant as a clear message to UT professors Mia Carter, Jennifer Glass and Lisa Moore, who sued the university and state in federal court last month to temporarily block the implementation of campus carry. The new law, which went into effect just last week, allows licensed gun owners to carry concealed handguns into most buildings on college campuses, where they were previously allowed just in common areas like quads and sidewalks.

The state's lawyers, in their Monday filing, asked Judge Lee Yeakel to throw out the professors' lawsuit. The educators fired back in their own brief, calling again for Yeakel to halt the law for one semester so they can hold a public trial on whether campus carry violates their constitutional rights to free speech and equal protection.

The professors' lawyers say the law and UT's own campus carry rules are too vague for his clients to know if and how they might be punished if they tried to keep gun owners out of their classrooms. 

"No person of common intelligence — and one would think that the tenured plaintiffs rise at least to that level — can figure out what governs them on this issue under Texas law and UT policies," the professors' attorneys wrote. 

They go on to say there is nothing in state law or UT policy that explicitly forbids professors to ban guns in classrooms, so, then, the question is "whether there is any policy at all that would bar plaintiffs from doing what they want to do or that would punish them in some way if they did so."

In the state's brief, attorneys from Paxton's agency say the law is clear. It gives campus presidents the ability to designate each school's limited "gun-free zones," they say, and if classrooms are not expressly included in campus policy as off-limits to firearms, then guns must be allowed there.

"The president is the sole individual authorized to establish gun exclusion zones on UT Austin's campus. He has not designated classrooms as gun exclusion zones," they wrote. 

Yeakel could decide by week's end whether to grant the professors' request to temporarily block the law. While their attorney said it would apply only to them and the students they will teach in the fall, Yeakel acknowledged granting their request would be a slippery slope that would allow other professors at UT, and every other public university in Texas, an excuse to ban guns in their classrooms.

Source: http://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/headlines/20160809-professors-who-ban-guns-in-their-classrooms-will-be-punished-ut-lawyer-says.ece

Heads will roll

“Now that the (Katehi) investigation is complete, we will consider next steps,” (UCOP spokeswoman Dianne) Klein said. “I am referring to other employees who were found to have violated UC policies.”*

So, who's next?

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*Quote from http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/education/article94953062.html

We're Number 89!

Capitol Weekly does an annual ranking of the top 100 most influential folks in Sacramento. UC's rep to the legislature comes in at #89.

89 Steve Juarez
UC is a mighty institution that gets things done, and one of the reasons is Steve Juarez, who lobbies on behalf of UC’s Office of the President. People in both houses who know higher education lobbying – and some outsiders, too – say Juarez is one of the reasons. He’s smart, prompt and detail-savvy – characteristics that count for much in the Capitol. UC offers up relatively few bills each session, so Juarez’ load may not seem all that heavy. But he also serves as a communications channel between the Legislature and the university – a critical role, given the image problems that have confronted the school this year and last.

Top 50 at:
http://capitolweekly.net/capitol-weeklys-top-100/

51 through 100 at:
http://capitolweekly.net/capitol-weeklys-top-100-51-100/

What's the lesson for other UC chancellors?

Don't make these

Now that former Davis Chancellor Katehi has resigned, what is the lesson to be drawn from her case? And what are we to make of the conflicting interpretations of the investigative report commissioned by UCOP and the UC prez concerning the allegations against Katehi. The report (redacted) can be found at https://ww2.kqed.org/news/2016/08/09/uc-davis-chancellor-linda-katehi-resigns/#katehireport. And its conclusions section seems to be summarized by the hold joke that when you're up to your chin in a sea of shit (or in this case, the aftermath of the pepper spray incident), don't make waves.* Katehi kept doing things that showed bad judgment or which kept her name in the headlines in a negative way. None of these things, if taken alone, would have gotten her fired (asked to resign). But like waves, they kept coming.

That seems to be the theme:

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*https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/1zahw9/a_guy_dies_and_goes_to_hell/?st=irp0ew3k&sh=83380cf8

There seem to be differing interpretations

Note: See our previous post for the official UC view.

UC Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi steps down

Sam Stanton and Diana Lambert, 8-9-16, Sacramento Bee

​UC Davis Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi resigned Tuesday following a three-month investigation of her actions that found she had violated numerous university policies, exercised poor judgment and failed to be candid with UC President Janet Napolitano and others, the university announced.

Katehi’s resignation marked the end of a seven-year tenure running one of the nation’s most prestigious universities, although she is being allowed to remain at the school as a full-time faculty member, Napolitano said in a statement issued just before 1 p.m.

 In a statement about Linda Katehi’s resignation issued Tuesday, Aug. 9, 2016, UC President Janet Napolitano stated that Katehi “exercised poor judgment, and violated multiple university policies.”

“The investigation is now concluded, and it found numerous instances where Chancellor Katehi was not candid, either with me the press, or the public, that she exercised poor judgment, and violated multiple university policies,” Napolitano said. “In these circumstances, Chancellor Katehi has now offered to resign, and I have accepted that resignation.”

The stunning fall from power came two days before the UC Board of Regents was to hold a special meeting at UC San Diego to discuss a personnel matter involving the Davis campus – apparently to decide Katehi’s fate – and after weeks of pushback by Katehi’s lawyer and spokesman about the investigation and suggestions that a lawsuit may be in the works.

Katehi attorney Melinda Guzman said Tuesday that Katehi never intended to sue the university. She maintained that the investigation cleared Katehi of virtually all the allegations, including nepotism and misuse of student funds.

The main strike against Katehi, Guzman said, was a “miscommunication” with Napolitano over how much involvement Katehi had in the hiring or two firms paid $175,000 to clean up UC Davis’ and Katehi’s online images after the 2011 pepper spraying of students on campus.

“Let’s be clear, the investigators did not reach a conclusion with regard to whether there was misleading or untruths,” Guzman said. “They were very clear very clear on that. The question was whether she may have minimized her role in the social media contracts.”

Guzman said Katehi was not ready yet to speak publicly, but Katehi issued a letter to the campus in which she declared that she had been cleared by the probe.

“The investigation regarding these allegations has been completed, and the investigators have confirmed that as to material allegations concerning my service to this institution, I did not violate UC policies or laws,” Katehi wrote.

Katehi also maintained that she never meant to mislead Napolitano when asked about the hiring of the social media firms.

“Regarding the social media contracts, the investigation team felt that I had minimized my knowledge of or role in the contracts and that my statements were ‘misleading, at best, or untruthful, at worst,’ apparently not reaching a conclusion on that issue,” she wrote. “I have never intended to mislead the President or anyone concerning my knowledge or role in these contracts.”

Guzman said Katehi’s husband, son and daughter-in-law will remain in their positions at the university.

Katehi, a prominent engineer, will “resume her position as a member of the distinguished faculty and as chancellor emeritus,” Guzman said.

“I have no doubt that she will continue to contribute to the UC Davis campus,” Guzman added.

The chancellor said in her letter that “a time comes when we aspire to go back to where our roots are.”

“Being an academic who loves teaching, and seeks to always innovate, I am very happy to go back to what I always have aspired to be, a faculty member,” she wrote.

Katehi, who has been living in the chancellor’s house on campus, has until Oct. 31 to vacate, said UC spokeswoman Dianne Klein.

The campus currently is overseen by acting Chancellor Ralph Hexter, and Napolitano said he will remain while a national search is conducted to replace Katehi.

“Today’s news ends a period of uncertainty at UC Davis,” Hexter said. “The resolution announced by President Napolitano permits us to focus all our efforts on moving the campus forward so that we can serve California, the nation and the world ever more effectively.”

Her resignation ends an era during which UC Davis set new marks for fundraising and ambition, and during which the campus extended its influence into Sacramento with plans for facilities in the city.

But it also marks the end of a turbulent period that brought worldwide condemnation to the school after campus police pepper sprayed student protesters and widespread ridicule after revelations that social media firms had been paid to, in essence, scrub the Internet of negative postings about UC Davis and Katehi.

“With Chancellor Katehi’s resignation, a sad chapter has come to an end,” said Assemblyman Kevin McCarty, a Sacramento Democrat who called for her to step down last spring following revelations that she had accepted board seats with the for-profit DeVry Education Group and with textbook publisher John Wiley & Sons.

“UC Davis can now move forward and be known for what they’re best at: rigorous academics, world class research, an innovative medical center in Sacramento, and an active student body.”

Katehi had many supporters among faculty, as well as Sacramento’s business and political leaders, but she lost support among students and others many following the revelations about her stewardship.

A five-week long sit-in by students outside her office helped keep the pressure on Katehi as she struggled to find a way out of controversy. One leader of the effort said Tuesday that students had planned new protests if action wasn’t taken to remove Katehi.

“I think it’s unfortunate that she has taken so many resources away from the campus in order to get to this point,” said Emily Breuninger, one of more than 30 student protesters who occupied Mrak Hall in April. “She basically turned UC Davis into her little money-making machine.”

“She should have done the honorable thing and resigned when Janet Napolitano asked her.”

Breuninger said the students had been considering additional protests because the promised 90-day administrative leave had expired and they had not heard from officials at the University of California. But they have no plans to disband.

“Moving forward we are going to push at having more of a say who the next chancellor is,” she said. “I think the push is to keep the momentum going and trying to democratize the process. They have to take student and workers into account.”

Source: http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/education/article94627837.html