Compact with state, UC upheld

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s recent $111.7 billion budget
for the upcoming fiscal year includes constitutional amendments to
impose across-the-board spending cuts to help the state alleviate
an $8.1 billion shortfall.

The proposed budget has remained in accordance with the May
compact ““ an agreement that ensures funding while denoting
performance expectations for the University of California over
several years ““ but has produced mixed emotions among
educators over a possible conflict between Schwarzenegger’s
cuts and last year’s compact.

“I think that a lot of the faculty were surprised that the
governor stuck with the compact, despite economic problems we are
facing right now and past tendencies of the state not to keep with
its compacts with the UC,” said Glen MacDonald, chairman of
the geography department.

“I see the budget as having some positives in helping the
UC deal with the current problems and also some future problems
(even though) the governor is stuck on whether or not he needs to
raise revenues or to make massive cuts, but he has chosen to take
the middle road and many of the UCLA faculty see it as a positive
step from past compacts,” MacDonald said.

But other professors believe that if the across-the-board cuts
were approved, the budget would go against the compact.

“If the amendment was part of the constitution, the
spending cuts will void all previous agreements the UC had with the
governor, including last year’s compact because the cuts will
go against the compact’s agreed funding to the UC,”
said Daniel Mitchell, a professor of public policy.

Many professors view these potential cuts as a violation to the
compact in many ways, including the threat to fiscal stability and
increased funding to the UC.

“The budget is currently consistent with the compact, but
whether or not it will stay consistent after the approval process
is highly unlikely since there are huge deficits that still need to
be addressed by the governor,” said Mark Peterson, chairman
of the public policy department.

These cuts would only be triggered if the governor and the
Legislature cannot agree on a budget after the start of a new
fiscal year, which begins July 1, or at midyear if revenues fall
short of meeting spending obligations as a long-term solution if
the problem persists.

Though many professors have differing views on the proposed
budget, many agree that the budget does not address the long-term
problems the state and the UC will face in future years.

“Part of the budget is a band-aid and we haven’t
really addressed the serious problems of the state yet in the
budget, so if funds were to be cut from us through across-the-board
cuts, I think the UC will have to make some tough decisions and
increase student fees,” MacDonald said.

The governor has outlined a bold reform measure to address
expected future deficits by endorsing an automatic spending cap
because spending is still greater than income tax revenue.

Schwarzenegger plans to put this constitutional amendment to
voters in a special election this year if lawmakers do not act.

But the public has a tendency to vote against appeals for a
reassessment of UC problems, said Larry Lyons, chairman of the
atmospheric science department.

“The budget is not as bad as it could be, but it does not
help the UC very much either because it does not address the
long-term problems and more problems are bound to appear in a few
years that the governor is not ready to address,” Lyons
said.

The governor’s budget includes general fund increases for
the UC of $76.1 million, a 3 percent increase for faculty and staff
salaries, health benefits, maintenance, inflation and other costs.
The budget also includes a 2.5 percent increase, which amounts to
$37.9 million, for enrollment growth of an additional 5,000
students.

“It does not matter so much about what the budget states
now because it’s still in the process of
finalizations,” Peterson said. “What really matters is
the end of the process, the outcome, when a budget is decided and
that’s when the UC can really see what needs to be done to
alleviate the state cuts,” he said.

The budget also asks the UC to endure a $17.3 million cut that
will either require a cut to enrollment after Fall 2005 or further
cuts to the UC outreach programs that have been left with $17
million in funds after the compact.

Student fees will also increase by 8 percent under the budget
plan.

“The fact of the matter is that the budget is not a good
deal to the UC because if you look at it, we are not getting a lot
of funding from previous years when the budget was more general and
also, the budget and the compact do not address the problems in the
long-run so the future of the UC is still uncertain,”
Mitchell said.

“What the university really needs is to move away from
state dependency and state funding and find other means of
financial support to help offset state cuts,” he said.