This past year has been a busy one for the Council of UC Faculty Associations (CUCFA), the systemwide umbrella organization that the DFA is a part of. As the state’s budget situation has grown worse, CUCFA has spent more time in Sacramento fighting for UC’s share of that state budget. The budget battle also dragged out regular legislative business that CUCFA always participates in. Additionally this year, UCOP, which has been undergoing a large amount of turnover amongst its leadership, has begun a major restructuring of its operations, which CUCFA has supported so long as the changes weren’t short sighted.
Below is a brief description of the major actions CUCFA has undertaken this past year on behalf of UC faculty.
CUCFA’s Actions This Past Year
The Budget
The highest concern this year has been California’s budget. State revenue has declined significantly recently, and the Governor initially proposed 10% across the board cuts for 2008-9 for all state-funded programs. For UC this would have been a cut of $98.5 million relative to the 2007-08 budget, or $331 million less than UC would normally have gotten under the “compact” – an agreement between UCOP and the Governor in which neither UC faculty nor legislators in Sacramento had input. Because the Governor’s budget also excluded certain requests made in the UC proposed budget – such as buying out the student fee increase proposed for this year – the Governor’s proposed budget was, in total, $417.4 million lower than the funding requested by UC.
In response, CUCFA drafted a position paper called “How to Restore the Promise” (available from our cucfa.org website) and used material from it to revamp the KeepCaliforniasPromise.org outreach website that also provides a calendar of upcoming important legislative hearings and Regent’s meetings, information on how to contact legislators, and a searchable database of newspaper articles about the underfunding of higher education in California.
CUCFA officers made numerous visits to legislators in their Sacramento offices, distributing the information we developed as well as reports from the Academic Senate’s University Committee on Planning & Budget reports. CUCFA also joined the higher education coalition created by Lt. Governor John Garamendi, and participated in the large rally on behalf of higher education held on April 21.
After those efforts, the revised budget released in May restored UC’s funding to the 2007-08 level — an increase of $98.5 million. CUCFA continued to fight for further restoration, but those are the numbers that were ultimately signed into law just days ago.
We anticipate the budget battle this upcoming spring to be just as difficult. It is often repeated that the California State budget suffers from structural deficits. While this is true, it is also the case that the state political process is hampered by its own structural deficiencies. It is difficult to see how the former can be effectively addressed before the latter is remedied.
Legislation
In addition to the budget bill, several legislative bills sought to stabilize UC funding or reduce student fee increases. CUCFA took a support position on some of these bills. We supported AB 2372 by Assemblymember Coto because it included a funding source, rather than freezing fees without making up for the lost revenue in UC’s budget. But the bill died. Similarly, CUCFA supported ACA 16 by Assemblymember Torrico, which would have created a guaranteed funding level for UC and CSU. But in keeping with the arguments we made in “How to Restore The Promise” we asked that the bill use fiscal year 2000-01 as its base. ACA 16 died in committee
We supported AB 2296 by Assemblymember Mullin, which clarified the illegal status of acts that are part of an incitement or conspiracy to engage in violent protest against university researchers, although we did request that the legislation not use the term of art “academic freedom.” The legislation passed, and its author wrote a letter to the Assembly Daily Journal stating that it is not the legislative intent that the definition of “academic freedom” in the bill should alter University policy on academic freedom.
We supported SB 325, by Senator Scott, which would have revamped the higher education accountability program. This bill (which is separate from UC President Yudof’s accountability efforts) was vetoed by the Governor.
CUCFA supported Senator Yee’s SB 1370, legislation that would prohibit faculty from being disciplined in acting to protect a student engaged in conduct authorized by a state “freedom of speech” law. This bill was signed by the Governor on September 28.
We also supported Senator Yee’s SB 1696, which would prevent UC from claiming that information that should be released under the California Public Records Act could not be released because they had signed a non-disclosure agreement with a contractor. Yee felt this legislation was necessary because in January of 2008 the San Francisco Chronicle submitted a CPRA request to UCSF for a copy of an independent audit of the school’s finances. UCSF denied the request claiming that the contract between UCSF and the private auditing firm (whom UC refused to name) required the latter’s consent before the report could be shared (eventually, UCSF released both the name of the firm and the report). This bill was signed by the Governor in July.
UCOP
CUCFA also communicates with the UC Office of the President on issues. One recent issue that has involved direct communication with UCOP as well as legislative action is UCRP governance. CUCFA supports the concept of a pension governing board with employee representation. We feel that the Regents should have responded in a positive manner to the request from the Legislature in last year’s SCR 52, which we supported. Unfortunately they did not. This led to new legislation: ACA 5 by Assemblymember Portantino. While we support the general goals of ACA 5, we have strong reservations about the use of a ballot measure and constitutional amendment to achieve those ends. In addition, we are very concerned about the fact that ACA 5 would give the Legislature increased authority related to the pension fund. Finally, we do not support the specific make up of the board in ACA 5. ACA 5 died in the legislature.
The Council has also been closely following UCOPs plans to outsource the administration of retirement benefits. The Academic Council wrote a letter to President Yudof opposing the planned privatization, and CUCFA followed up with a letter supporting the Academic Council’s position.
There have been other moves made by UC in its effort to downsize operations at UCOP, several of which have concerned us. This has led us to, for example, write a letter to President Yudof directing his attention to the compelling arguments that exist for the continued management of the Natural Reserve System from within the Office of the President.
As always, we will continue to track issues of concern to faculty, and inform you, our members, of actions we take.