Gov. Brown vetoes $50M earmarked for deferred maintenance at UC
By Jeong Park
Sept. 27, 2014 9:33 p.m.
On Saturday, Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed a $50 million allocation to the University of California to fund deferred maintenance projects.
In a letter to the California Assembly, Brown said he thinks the state should not allocate more funding for the UC while the state is also dealing with unanticipated costs such as fighting California wildfires.
Assembly Bill 1476, an amendment to the 2014-2015 state budget, passed the Legislature in late August and initially included the allocation. Brown passed the bill, which includes items such as funding for the legal support of unaccompanied and undocumented minors, but used a line-item veto to strike down funding for the UC.
The UC sent a letter to Brown in September expressing its support of the bill, saying the University’s backlog of maintenance projects has grown dramatically. In April, UCLA alone had $770 million in deferred maintenance costs.
“Long-term failure to address deferred maintenance greatly increases the risk that catastrophic failure of mission-critical utility distribution systems would shut down an entire campus,” UC President Janet Napolitano said in the letter.
If the allocation had passed, the $50 million would have added to the $142.2 million base budget increase the UC received from the state in June. Initially, the additional funding depended on whether revenue from property taxes exceeded the amount Brown predicted.
The $50 million allocation was meant for the one-time purpose of funding a backlog of repairs and renovations on UC campuses. If the state accumulated more revenue than projected in future fiscal years, the allocation would have become continuous for the enrollment growth and improvement of student services.
Compiled by Jeong Park, Bruin senior staff.
