Outage Coming - Part 2 (It's here)

From an email of Dec. 16:

Attention Faculty, Staff, and Student Employees

This is a reminder that the UCPath system will be unavailable to all UC employees while UC Irvine and UC Santa Cruz transition to UCPath.

Outage Dates and Times

• Outage 2: Wednesday, December 18 at 5:00 p.m. until Sunday, December 22 at 8:00 a.m.

During this outage, you will not have any access to UCPath. This means you will not have access to:

• View or download pay statements
• View leave balances
• Employee self-service actions, such as signing up for direct deposit or electronically enrolling in benefits because of a qualifying life event

Tips: How to Prepare for the Outage [Sorry. Too late now!]

• View and print paystubs prior to the outages if you will require copies of your pay statements.
• Get employment verifications in advance.

Contact Info

During the outages, the UCPath Center is available via phone to assist with questions related to benefits, including providing forms for benefits enrollment for new hires, and registering a qualifying life event (e.g., marriage, birth of a baby).

You can contact the UCPath Center, Monday through Friday, from 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. (PT) at (855) 982-7284.

A flyer about the outage is available for departments to distribute to their staff as needed.

For any other questions, please contact:

UCLA’s Central Resource Unit (CRU)

Phone: (310) 825-1089, option 5

Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

Central Resource Unit Client Services

Poll

A new Gallup poll taken last June suggests a decline in favorable attitudes toward higher education.

The political divide on the issues may not be surprising. The age divide, however, is. Younger folks, presumably at the age where they are in or are considering higher education, are more skeptical about the importance of higher education than older. Make of it what you will. 

Summary tables are below: [Click on tables below to enlarge and clarify.]

Source: https://news.gallup.com/poll/270008/half-consider-college-education-important.aspx

Listen to the Regents' Presidential Search Meeting of Dec. 13, 2019

As blog readers will know, the Regents are currently searching for a new UC president to replace Janet Napolitano - who will be stepping down over the summer. The last time there was a search for the UC president, former governor Jerry Brown was taking an active role on the Board of Regents (which most governors haven't done). The Regents thus decided to hire a former governor (of Arizona), as opposed to an academic: a governor to deal with the governor. This step was a deviation from the past in which UC presidents had been academics.

This time around, there is an effort to be more "transparent" in the search. So a series of public hearings are being held by the Regents to discuss what considerations the search committee should take account of in the selection process. Note that these are not hearings in which specific candidates are to be discussed. Exactly what the Regents will do when there is a short list of actual candidates remains to be seen. However, it was said that by summer 2020, there would be nominees.

In any case, the first hearing was held on Dec. 14 at Davis. The next will be at UCLA on Jan. 14.

During the public comments period, speakers talked about upholding the old Master Plan vision and improved labor relations. Formal witnesses then spoke representing various organizations. There was a presentation by the California Student Aid Commission about the importance of affordability. A program at UC-Davis called "Wheelhouse" deal with issues related to community colleges and a spokesperson from that organization talked about the UC connection to the community colleges. Representatives of the UC-Santa Cruz student government spoke about diversity, legislative relations, and suggested that candidates should have higher ed experience. An organization that goes by the name JFF was represented and spoke about the economic and labor market impacts of UC. (JFF stands for Jobs for the Future - although you really have to hunt around on the JFF website to find out what the abbreviation means.) Presentations were also made by representatives of the Fresno Black Chamber of Commerce and Education Trust West dealing with recruitment of underrepresented students.

You can hear the meeting at:

or direct to:
https://archive.org/details/regentsprezsearch12132019

Keeping folks on their Tows in Westwood

The Bruin provides a handy guide to parking on a much-usedWestwood street. Good luck.

Source: http://dailybruin.com/images/2019/12/12.7.standalone.gayleyparking.png

Listen to the Regents' Health Services Committee: Dec. 10, 2019

The Health Services Committee of the Regents meets on an off-cycle basis, i.e., not with the regular Regents meetings that occur every other month. During the public comments portion, there were speakers on toxic mold and contracts with Dignity Health. The new VP for health Carrie Byington MD addressed the meeting for the first time and discussed her background. An approval of an executive pay arrangement was passed for the interim CEO for the health enterprise at UC-Davis. Plans were approved for a replacement hospital at Parnassus Heights for UC-San Francisco. There was discussion of potential risks of partnering with counties with regard to mental health services. The possibility of obtaining funds for student mental health under Proposition 63 of 2004 was also discussed. (Prop 63 was an income tax surcharge on incomes over $1 million for mental health services.)

There was also a dramatic description of a promising new therapy that had been applied to a faculty member who became infected on a foreign trip with a bacteria for which no antibiotics were effective.

You can hear the Committee meeting at the link below:

or direct to:
https://archive.org/details/regentshealth12102019

Note: Yesterday, there was a special Regents-sponsored meeting with regard to the selection of a new UC president. We will discuss it in a later post once yours truly has had a chance to review it.

Requa case settlement

Plaintiff Joe Requa

Blog readers will know that a group of retirees from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory sued the Regents in 2010 when the lab's management was spun off and they experienced a cut in retiree health care benefits.*

At issue in the Requa case, indirectly, was the larger issue of whether the Regents had an obligation to provide retiree health care in a manner similar to the obligation to provide a pension, or whether retiree health care is just a nice thing the Regents choose to do. The official position of the Regents is that there is no obligation.

The risk for the Regents is that had the case gone to trial, and had the verdict been a win for the plaintiffs, there would then be a court decision potentially affecting all UC employees, not just those who had worked at Lawrence Livermore, saying retiree health was a legal obligation. On December 11th, a settlement agreement was filed which outlines a monetary settlement and appears to drop claims of Regental legal obligation. (The settlement has to be approved by the court, but approval is likely.)

The headline dollar value of the settlement is $84 million. Various legal and other documents are available at http://llnlretiree.com/uc-retirees-who-worked-lawrence-livermore-lab-reach-84-million-settlement-university-california. Below are some documents from the December 11th filing that indicate that there is no inference that the Regents have an obligation to provide for retiree health care. [Clicking on the images will enlarge and clarify them.]

Released claims:

Source: http://llnlretiree.com/sites/default/files/legal-documents/Memorandum%20of%20Points%20%26%20Authorities%20in%20Support%20of%20Petitioners%27%20Motion%20for%20Preliminary%20Approval%20of%20Joint%20Stipulation%20of%20Class%20Action%20Settlement%20%26%20Release.endorsed.pdf (p. 18)

More on released claims:

Source: http://llnlretiree.com/sites/default/files/legal-documents/%5BProposed%5D%20Order%20Granting%20Preliminary%20Approval%20of%20Stipulation%20of%20Class%20Action%20Settlement%20%26%20Release.pdf (p. 7)

Explanation to plaintiffs:

Source: http://llnlretiree.com/sites/default/files/legal-documents/Declaration%20of%20Scott%20H.%20Freeman.endorsed.pdf (p. 6)

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*http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2019/07/requiem-for-requap.html

UCLA Anderson Forecast still suggests a slowing state economy - Part 2

We earlier posted about the UCLA Anderson Forecast that was released last week.* 

The Forecast project now makes its sessions available on YouTube. Below is the California portion of the Forecast.

The complete program is available at the Forecast website.**


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*https://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2019/12/ucla-anderson-forecast-still-suggests.html
**https://www.anderson.ucla.edu/centers/ucla-anderson-forecast/december-2019-economic-outlook