At their October meeting, the UC Regents approved the budget for 1997-98 and discussed a proposal for 1998-99. There is not room here to outline the full budget proposal , but highlights which might be of particular interest to faculty follow:
1997-98: Faculty salaries and merits were funded as proposed in the compact so faculty will receive regular merits, COLAs of 2% and an additional parity increase of 3% (although the exact percentages may vary by rank). Faculty merits will be paid from July 1, although the new budgetary system may have caused delays in some departments. All UC employees will experience a one-month delay (from Oct. to Nov.) for COLA and parity increases due to a one-time budget reduction of $9.5M. This reduction was made necessary by the Governor’s repayment of funds appropriated from the Public Employees Retirement System. Late action resulted in the Governor’s signing of a bill by Ducheny (D-SD) to restore $2.5M of the original $12M cut to UC. The Regents voted to apportion $1.25M back to deferred maintenance and to allow President Atkinson to determine the distribution of the remaining $1.25M. Since it is too small to cover a full month of salary redress, it likely that Atkinson will put it all into deferred maintenance.
1998-99: In keeping with the compact, UC is proposing expenditures to cover merits for eligible employees, a 2% COLA for all employees, and an additional 2.5% parity for ladder rank faculty. This parity increase is designed to bring faculty salaries to the level of our comparison institutions and may be reviewed in November when more is known about the comparison data. In fact, CPEC will be conducting a review of the salary methodology in the spring; it is expected that consideration of cost-of-living variables among the institutions will be one of the topics of the review.
Faculty/Student Ratio: President Atkinson again expressed concern to the Regents about the high FS ratio at UC, especially in relation to our comparison institutions. Current budgeted ratio is 18.5, although the actual enrolled ratio is 19.5 (even greater on some campuses because the ratio is lower on campuses with high graduate enrollment); the ratio is 14.5 for the public and 10.1 for our comparison private schools. To get back to the 17.5 ratio UC enjoyed for many years before the budget cuts of the early 1990s, UC would need to hire about 500 new faculty. However, the 1998-99 budget proposal contains funding for 1.4% enrollment growth and is based on the same target of faculty/student ratio of 18.7.
Matching Program for Federal Contracts and Grants: As a priority for funds beyond the compact, UC is requesting an additional $3M from the state to provide matching funds to assist faculty to compete for federal funds by having the flexibility to mount a rapid response when opportunities to submit proposals arise at a time when the commitment of matching funds is becoming a greater determinant in the awarding of research grants.
Digital Library: UC will make an initial investment of $1M and ask the state to provide $3M to create a digital library while maintaining and improving current collections and services. In its first year, the CDL (California Digital Library) will develop a delivery mechanism for electronic materials, support digitization of books and periodicals, establish policies and procedures for archiving digital content, encourage electronic publishing by faculty, and assist campuses in providing user support and training.
Tenth Campus Funds: Another priority for additional funds is for $5M to bring the permanent core funding for the tenth campus to the full $10M originally proposed for 1997-98.