San Francisco “”mdash; The Committee on Finance of the UC Board of Regents voted 9-1 Thursday to remove a section that would have increased student fees by 9.4 percent from the proposed budget it was sending to the state legislature.
The Regents approved the budget for the 2009-2010 academic year, but also passed a resolution threatening curtailed enrollment if the University of California does not receive additional funding from the state.
Currently, the UC system already enrolls 10,000 students more than it receives funding for, according to Brad Hayward, a spokesman for the UC Office of the President.
UC Student Regent D’Artagnan Scorza brought the motion to remove all language about student fees from the budget.
“Students know the situation. Students want to help maintain the quality of the institution,” Scorza said during a full board meeting on the third and final day of the Regents’ bimonthly meetings.
But, he said, student fee increases should only come after other options had been tested, to maintain the support of constituent groups, including alumni and faculty.
“At least let it be the last consideration, not the first.”
Lt. Gov. John Garamendi, who has been a vocal advocate against cuts in state funding for higher education, agreed with Scorza that the Regents should seek more funding from the legislature before raising student fees.
“We presented a budget that assumes a student fee increase,” he said.
“Tactically, that’s the wrong way to go about it. We have to put pressure on the state legislature.”
Since the legislature has not yet approved an official budget ““ and generally does not do so until January, the UC Regents are being forced to plan for the next academic year without concrete numbers.
“We’re going to have this problem next March, April or May,” said UC President Mark Yudof.
He said student fee decisions would be difficult to decide until the state legislature produces a definitive budget.
“It’s not going to arrive in a timely fashion; that’s part of our problem,” he said. “We’ve got enrollment times, we have times we’ve got to tell students what their bills are going to be, and this political process just rolls on irrespective of the real deadlines that students face in their lives.”
Judith Hopkinson, the only member of the finance committee to vote against the amendment to remove student fees from the budget, said that an increase to student fees would be unavoidable. Further, she said, fees need to be determined in a timely manner so that students and their families are prepared.
Hopkinson, the chief of staff to the regents, referred to an earlier financial crisis, when the board postponed setting student fees before finally approving an increase.
“We got a huge, appropriate backlash from parents and students who did not know what their tuition was going to be,” she said.
“And at that point we established a policy that said we will determine what student fees are, I think we said by January. Not to do that is punting unfairly to our future students.”
Hopkinson insisted that deciding student fees is not a legislative decision but the role of the Regents.
She also raised a concern that budget limitations would force an increase even later in the year, negatively affecting students who need to make decisions about financing their education.
“There is not ““ I don’t know how to say this politely ““ there’s not a snowball’s chance that we’re going to get $800 million from the state,” she said, referring to the $755 million increase in core operating funds for the UC that is included in the approved 2009-2010 budget.The Regents hope the state will contribute that amount to help cover rising costs as enrollment numbers continue to rise.
“We’re only going to get so much money from the legislature, so if we don’t increase fees and they give us whatever they give us, it’s not going to change,” Hopkinson said.
The shortfalls in California’s budget and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenneger’s planned cuts of $65.5 million from the UC system also sparked discussions of enrollment limitations for the upcoming year.
Several regents voiced concerns about whether the university would be able to retain the quality of education if student populations continue to climb as funding plummets, and the board may convene again in December as the individual UC campuses sort through applications from prospective students to resolve the enrollment question.
Financial concerns also dominated the public comment period in the first session of the morning Thursday.
Representatives from American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3299 filled most of the seats open to the public.
Lakesha Harrison, president of AFSCME Local 3299, said about 200 union members and supporters were attending the meeting to protest “the poverty wages of our 8,500 service workers.”
“We’re demanding that they help raise our workers out of poverty,” she said.
She said that 96 percent of service workers in the UC system are making poverty wages and are eligible for food stamps and Section 8 housing, which is federally subsidized for low-income workers.
San Francisco Supervisor Tom Ammiano was the first to speak during public comment.
“I’m here to lend my voice to those who are extremely less fortunate,” he said, calling service workers “those who perform in the shadows.”
At the end of the public comment period, which also included one-minute speeches from medical students pushing for affordable medicine and several organizations asking the university to increase diversity and minority recruitment, AFSCME supporters began chanting at the seated regents.
As they stood and clapped, more than 100 protesters alternated between shouts of “UC Regents, can’t you see? Our workers live in poverty!” and “We’ll be back!”
The go-to phrase of “No justice! No peace!” eventually became a chant of “No contract! No peace!” as most of the workers filed out of the room.
Most of the regents also left the room after Regent Richard Blum called for a 10-minute recess.
Protesters in the front row remained to continue chanting as the members who left staged a rally outside the community center at the UC San Francisco Mission Bay campus.
After the remaining protesters ignored repeated orders from university police to clear the room, officers arrested seven individuals.
According to Capt. Jon Easterbrook, the five males and two females will be cited for trespassing and failure to disperse in a lawful order.
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