Thursday, October 17, 1996
ADMINISTRATION:
Budget funds will no longer be specifically earmarked by state
legislature By Brooke Olson
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
The fiscal year that began on July 1 brought with it a change
that was as quiet as it was important  the implementation of
the University of California Budget Initiative.
First proposed by UC President Richard Atkinson last year, the
initiative allows each UC campus unrestricted spending of
legislature funds.
In the past, the state funded the University in discrete
categories related to student enrollment, allocating a set amount
of money for library acquisitions, instructional equipment and the
hiring of new faculty.
Campuses received one faculty position for every 28 students,
but a lower-division undergraduate counted as one additional
student, while a Ph.D. candidate counted as three-and-a-half
students.
Under the new initiative, the university gets $6,800 for any
type of new student. The Office of the President then passes on
these funds to the campuses with the expectation that the money
will cover expenses in all the old categories  but with no
knowledge or direct control over how a campus may allocate these
funds.
"The new initiative provides campuses with a lot more
flexibility, allowing the universities to include the possibility
of student fee endowments and supporting faculty from
non-traditional sources," said Duncan Mellichamp, Chair of the
Academic Council.
However, some students believe that the unrestricted funding
could bring potential abuses of the system and leave the
administration unaccountable in legislative spending.
"(The budget initiative) was implemented before any checks and
balances were instituted," said Debby Davis, president of the
United California Students Association.
"There are no agreements with the chancellors on how they’ll be
called to the accountability  basically the chancellors will
be the ones who can hold how the money will be spent," she
added.
Although the administration and faculty acknowledge that the
funds could be misused, many expressed hope that each campus would
hold to the accountability "compacts" currently being designed
within each administration.
The pact, which will be signed by the UC President and each
individual campus chancellor, would set certain expectations, such
as how much funding would go toward financial aid.
"Each campus will write a letter to the President in which we
will propose a set of accountability measures; each (letter) will
be different," said UC Riverside Chancellor Raymond Orbach in a
faculty newsletter.
Currently, these compacts with the Office of the President are
still being designed, although one possible accountability measure
has caused a fair amount of controversy on the campuses.
The state has insisted that UC faculty teach an average of 4.8
quarter courses per year. UC professors currently meet this
expectation, but only by averaging teaching loads across all its
campuses.
Some campuses are above the average, while others are below it.
Under the new accountability compacts, every campus will be
expected to meet the 4.8 minimum.
"We have a commitment to the state for a certain course load at
the University," said UC Director of Budget, Larry Hershman. "Now
we’re going to have one for each campus; that’s a big
difference."
Campuses who currently fall below the state-designated level
will need to find additional funds to meet the expected teaching
load.
But many administrators focus on the increased flexibility and
advantages the new initiative will allow, including an element of
predictability.
Since each campus will receive a specific amount of money for
each new student, the university can foresee how much state funding
will be received.
In addition, campuses will be able to develop new undergraduate
or graduate programs independently of other budget
restrictions.
But still some students are alarmed by the influx of
unrestricted funding, noting that it could give an incentive for
each campus to enlarge its undergraduate populations.
"Before the initiative, each campus got more money for enrolling
a graduate student, which made sense because it costs more to
educate a graduate student," Davis said.
"But now, with a graduate student being ‘worth’ as much an
undergraduate, the university might enroll more undergraduates
because they’re cheaper to educate," she added, noting that the
increase of undergraduates could lower the current 20:1
faculty-student ratio.
But administrators counter that the accountability compacts
 once they’re designed  will prevent such abuses and
ensure a stable and fair growth of both graduate and undergraduate
student populations.
"People aren’t anticipating any major problems with this new
initiative," Mellichamp said. "Yes, the UCs need to have
accountability on each campus so that the funds that are
distributed down to the academic units will be utilized most
effectively.
"But, each campus needs to realize that the promises we’ve made
in regards to graduate and undergraduate students will be
maintained with respect to each individual compact," he added.
UC faculty members note that graduate school funding  and
not enrollment  will be affected the most by the new
initiative.
Professional schools which charge differential fees will
increasingly be expected to make their own way, since the
initiative calls for them to generally receive no funding for
enrollment growth and no funding for inflationary cost increases
outside of salary raises.
With the special fees they have charged since 1994, schools such
as law, medicine and business have moved, to a small extent, toward
being self-sustaining units. The president’s budget initiative will
push them further in this direction, as reported by the current
Academic Senate notice.
"It certainly seems that this is a step toward the privatization
of each university," Davis said. "However, because the initiative
was just implemented, we can only speculate on how it will affect
the ways the university is run."
Administrators agree that it is too early to determine the
effects of both the initiative and the accountability compacts and
note that only "time will tell."