UCLA still adjusting to reduced funding
By Crystal Hsing
Sept. 19, 2010 4:02 a.m.
While students can look forward to a newly renovated Rieber Hall, a new venue for Bruin Bash and the beginning of a new school year, the campus they are returning to is still adjusting to last year’s budget cuts.
California’s budget plan, which was adopted for the 2009-2010 fiscal year, cut funding for the University of California system by $670 million for the current academic year. While the California legislature has yet to approve a state budget for the 2010-2011 fiscal year, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s budget proposal, if passed, would restore $305 million to the UC system.
UCLA leaders took a conservative approach, however, when planning for the current academic year and did not factor UCLA’s possible $55 million share into their budget plan, said Steve Olsen, vice chancellor for finance, budget and capital programs.
“We’re in September now, and there still is no state budget,” Olsen said. “We assumed, I continue to think appropriately, that none of this restored funding would be approved by the state.”
UCLA is seeing a reduction of $117 million, a 20 percent drop in state funding. The rising cost of utilities, health benefits for employees and other labor costs amount to an additional $83 million, resulting in a $200 million budget shortfall, Olsen said.
“All the numbers conveniently add up to $200 million, which is a horrible number, but easy to remember,” Olsen said. “We have solutions in place for that $200 million, which represent UCLA’s budget plan.”
Now in the second year of substantial reductions in state funding, the administration is moving forward on the groundwork laid in the 2009-2010 academic year, said Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Scott Waugh.
“Two years before this year, we were really scrambling to figure out how we were going to meet these cuts,” Waugh said. “Now we’ve done most of that basic groundwork, so we feel that we’re in the status quo of last year, a steady state.”
According to Olsen, a significant portion of the shortfall will be covered by the 32 percent increase in student fees. However, UCLA is also maintaining the cost-saving measures that began last year, including budget cuts of an average 10 percent in each academic department.
These cuts affect the number of teaching assistants and lecturers that can be hired, resulting in larger discussion sections as fewer teaching assistants are hired and fewer elective courses as faculty must take over the core courses usually taught by lecturers, said Judith Smith, dean and vice provost for undergraduate education.
Offering fewer electives fits with the goal of Challenge 45, the College of Letters and Science’s ongoing effort to reduce each major’s upper division requirements to 45 units. Challenge 45 is a measure largely necessitated by the College’s restricted ability to hire faculty replacements, Smith said.
“With fewer faculty to teach, we thought that this would give each department a chance to look at their curriculum in a serious way and ask what’s core,” she said.
All departments that have participated in Challenge 45 have lowered their upper division unit requirements by some amount. For instance, the political science department cut 16 units by eliminating the Allied Field requirement, which called for students to take electives in another social science.
Some departments, such as the Cesar E. Chavez Department of Chicana/o Studies, have used the opportunity to not only eliminate units, but also enhance the curriculum by building an option for a capstone seminar into their program, giving students the chance to do research in their area of study, Smith said.
To date, 34 of the College’s 100 departments have made changes which have been approved by the College’s Faculty Executive Committee. Another 15 percent of the departments are expected to make proposals for changes to their programs in the fall, she said.
The faculty hiring rate is expected to slowly rise as central administration asked each dean’s office to produce a three-year faculty-hiring plan. Based on these plans, the administration will begin to slowly restore some of the losses the academic departments have had in the past two years, Waugh said.
“Given our budget projections and what we knew would be available, we asked the deans to figure out where they most need faculty, where there are holes in their programs,” he said. “It’s not a wholesale opening up of doors to hiring, but a gradual, responsible rate.”
Central administration has also embarked on programs to increase out-of-state students as an extra source of income, since out-of-state students pay about $24,000 more in tuition than California residents. This year, UCLA increased out-of-state student enrollment by more than 150 students, Olsen said.
“Nonresident students have generated enough revenue to help support the academic program, not only for the impact that they have, but for California residents as well,” he said.
These measures work to increase UCLA’s core academic funds, which are used to fund academic and staff salaries and student financial aid.
With student fees now comprising almost 40 percent of these core funds, according to UCLA’s 2010-2011 Budget for Current Operations, oversight of how these fees are used is an important issue, said Ray Franke, chair of the Student Fee Advisory Committee, a committee comprised of undergraduate, graduate, faculty and staff representatives that makes budget recommendations to the chancellor regarding the use of student fees.
“(The Student Fee Advisory Committee) ultimately provides a forum for students to come together to talk to administrators and faculty members and also gives students direct access to budget information,” Franke said. “We can then make recommendations for how student fees should be used in the best interests of the students.”
The Student Fee Advisory Committee’s ability to advise on budget issues is an example of the type of student representation the Undergraduate Students Association Council is working to increase, said Cristopher Santos, USAC external vice president.
“We only have one voting student regent on the Board of Regents, with more than 20 voting regents appointed by the governor,” Santos said. “Is that a system that really takes into account the level of investment from students in the state?”
As the most important stakeholders in the university, students must continue to advocate for student representation in order to make affordability a priority at the statewide level, Santos said.
“As students, a lot of our lives are at stake here,” he said.
“That’s the reason we want to be at the table where decisions are made.”
