by Myrna Hays
Background: When we reported on the threat to faculty salaries posed by the Governor’s 1999-2000 budget, which included a reduction of $51M from UC’s base budget and discontinuation of the $70M of one-time funding available in the 1998-99 budget, we promised to work hard to persuade legislators that, should more money become available as was anticipated, some or all of these funds should be restored to UC. In our meetings with legislators, we specifically advocated providing full funding for UC’s projected enrollment growth at the agreed-upon marginal cost of instruction; maintaining competitive faculty salaries, which the CPEC methodology shows would require a 2.5% increase for faculty; and continuing to provide targeted funding for the University libraries and the replacement of obsolete instructional equipment–the 1998-99 funding provided $20M for instructional equipment and $10M to begin to restore the print collection in the UC libraries. (At the FA’s request, supplemental language was also included asking UC to develop a funding strategy and multi-year plan to address the library funding problem with attention to traditional print collections.) In the Regents’ request, UC included $7.5M as the first step in a multi-year plan to address these needs.
May Revise: The Governor’s revised budget and actions by the Assembly and the Senate budget subcommittees together support full funding for enrollment growth at UC and a restoration of the $51M shortfall from the January budget. This funding, if carried through to the final budget, would permit UC to provide faculty salary increases of 2.5%, the amount required to maintain parity with our comparison institutions.
The Assembly subcommittee has not acted on UC’s request for a repeat of the $70M in one-time funding from last year,
but the Senate subcommittee has proposed approximately $35M in on-going funds for those same categories: deferred maintenance, instructional materials/technology, and library materials ($2.5M was also added to the libraries at the last minute–largely due to efforts by our lobbyist). Now these issues will need to go to the Conference Committee.
The entire budget, of course, is far from final; it must be approved by the Conference committee, the full Legislature, and the Governor. But, so far, things look promising, especially in respect to the FA’s stated goals.