San Francisco “”mdash; The UC Board of Regents unanimously passed the Blue and Gold Opportunity Plan and the Freshman Eligibility Proposal, measures aimed at making the university more affordable and accessible, on Thursday. The board cut discussion of these two measures short and moved on to discussing cutbacks in the UC budget and approving funding of the UC Retirement Plan beginning April 2010.
The board members said students will also have one less thing to worry about if they receive IOUs from the state later this spring instead of their Cal Grants. The UC Regents agreed to advance enough funds to cover what the Cal Grants would normally cover.
“I think we owe it to our students,” UC President Mark G. Yudof said. “Private funds are not a realistic replacement for state funds in the short run. We need to be as effective as we can in advocating our position in Sacramento. We really need a 30 percent increase in our budget,” Yudof added.
In addition to requesting more financial support from the California state government, Yudof said he has made visits to each of the UC campuses and met with their respective chancellors to review both their current budget and their proposed budgets for 2009-2010.
Patrick Lenz, the UC vice president for budget and one of California’s leading experts in public higher education funding according to the University of California Web site, was in attendance at the meeting. Lenz said that the board has looked to reduce administrative costs of each campus.
At the meeting, alternative means of generating revenue like through a tax increase, which may be proposed directly to the people of California as a possible ballot measure, were also discussed.
“We have an opportunity in California that others do not have, and that is to go directly to the people in a ballot initiative,” UC Regent Bonnie Reiss said.
Regent Sherry L. Lansing suggested asking alumni and parents to make a personal donation.
“We’ve never looked at asking everyone for a $10 contribution, like we have done with the March of Dimes, or with cancer research. We’ve never engaged the private sector,” Lansing said.
The board meeting was abruptly interrupted at this point by a group of UC Berkeley students, who suddenly stood up and shouted, “Hey regents!”
The students broke into song, scolding the regents for funding the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, which works with various types of energy development for both civilian and military usage.
After the students finished, they left peacefully with a police escort.
The board took a brief recess during the protest song, then returned to complete the meeting.
The UC Retirement Plan has also been an issue for debate in the UC community. Paul Angelo, the consulting actuary from the Segal Company consulting firm, said that there have been no employer or employee contributions to the UCRP in about 19 years. This will change in April 2010, when the board approves contributions to the UCRP. The employees will also begin contributing at that point without any official change in take-home pay when the funding resumes next year.
Currently, UC employees have 2 percent of their pay taken out before it is seen on their paychecks; this money is put into the Defined Contribution Plan.
Under the plan, this 2 percent will be put into the UCRP instead, forcing employees to use part of their take-home pay if they want to continue to grow their Defined Contribution Plan.