Recall is probably a word Gov. Gray Davis has grown tired of.
But come Oct. 7, it may be a matter of what voters recall that
determines whether he keeps his job.
As thousands of University of California faculty, staff and
students vote whether or not to remove Davis from office, their
assessment of his impact on the UC might depend on what period of
his administration they focus on.
Recently, Davis’ reputation has been marred by dramatic
cuts to the UC that slashed student services, forced some students
to drop out of school, and made it infeasible for the UC to
increase faculty salaries.
But since Davis took office in 1998, he has championed
educational programs.
“My top three priorities were then, and still are,
education, education, education,” Davis said during an Aug.
19 UCLA campaign stop.
To ensure UC funding was adequate, Davis formed a Partnership
Agreement between the state and the UC in 2000, which promised the
UC a 5 percent annual budget increase as long as the UC met certain
criteria.
But despite the UC’s continuing commitment to the terms of
the Partnership, the state did not fulfill its obligation in 2001.
This year’s funding was $1.1 billion less than it should have
been under the Partnership.
“When (Davis) started breaking the Partnership … that is
when the UC started really suffering,” said Matt Kaczmarek,
UCLA Undergraduate Students Association Council external vice
president and UC Student Association chairman.
This past year, within days of being re-elected governor, Davis
began discussing something he said he would always oppose: raising
student fees.
“He fought to keep (student) fees low until the state
reached a shortfall of monumental proportions,” said Davis
spokeswoman Hilary McLean.
Throughout his campaign to maintain the governorship, Davis has
said he had no choice but to make recent cuts to the UC, California
State University and community colleges.
In August, Davis said the factor that catalyzed the recall
movement ““ the $38.2 billion deficit ““ was outside his
control, and was a result of the high-tech bust that devastated the
Bay Area.
“It’s inevitable. You have to make cuts during
periods like this,” said UCLA economics Professor Gary
Hansen.
In response to the deficit, Davis signed a budget that included
$410 million in cuts.
“The choice was between raising taxes or facing sharp
cuts, and the political system doesn’t find raising taxes
very attractive,” said UCLA Anderson Forecast Director Edward
Leamer.
Because the state’s economy is cyclical, few governors
have served without reducing funding to the UC. Steve Olsen, UCLA
budget vice chancellor, added that another governor likely could
not have been much more successful than Davis at preserving the
university’s funding.
“These budget shortages seem to happen every 10
years,” said Olsen, who served as deputy finance director
under Davis’ predecessor, Pete Wilson.
In January, the UC proposed a 25 percent student fee increase to
absorb the $300 million cuts advocated in Davis’ budget
proposal. But with the official budget containing additional cuts,
the UC Regents approved a 30 percent student fee increase.
Fees increased an average of $1,150 a year for undergraduate
students. Professional student fees increased from $675 for nursing
to $2,273 for law. Increases in law student fees have prompted some
students, like second-year UCLA law student Shannon McMasters, to
consider dropping out of school.
And outreach, which McLean said has been a top priority for
Davis, undertook a 50 percent cut, which Early Academic Outreach
Program Director Debbie Pounds described as
“devastating.”
“(Davis) got caught up in the (state’s) fiscal
problems,” Olsen said. “That is the main variable that
affects any governor’s ability to support the
university.”
Budget shortages eventually led to an unraveling of many of
Davis’ higher education accomplishments.
Because of budget problems, UC Merced, which was scheduled to
start classes in fall 2004, will now open its doors in 2005,
locking more than a thousand students out of the UC.
Two years of budget cuts to research have resulted in tumultuous
times for UCLA’s North Campus research units. The ethnic
study centers ““ the American Indian Studies Center, Chicano
Studies Research Center, Ralph J. Bunche Center for African
American Studies, and Asian American Studies Center ““ have
been especially hard hit.
“Those units have pretty much been cut to the bone,”
Claudia Mitchell-Kernan, dean of the graduate division, said in
August.
Olsen said despite recent budget cuts, Davis remains a strong
supporter of the UC.
“He has shown a very strong interest in it; a very
personal interest it,” he said.