SACRAMENTO, Calif., USA - This video, produced at the request of parents fighting cuts to the education budget in California - is hilarious, and, unfortunately, right on target.
What a mess the schools are in, trying to deal with budget cuts, teacher layoffs and a never-ending string of new administrative solutions (read: ways to save the bureaucracy at the expense of every one else).
The portions about Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger are, well, you have to watch for yourself.
Showing posts with label CSU. Show all posts
Showing posts with label CSU. Show all posts
Thursday, April 08, 2010
Monday, July 27, 2009
Faculty approve furlough idea; Perfect Storm brewing
SACRAMENTO, Calif., USA - Members of the California Faculty Association approved the notion of furloughs (and a concomitant 9.75 percent pay reduction) in voting last week.
They also voted that they have about as much confidence in CSU Chancellor Charles Reed as England did in the late Neville Chamberlain, the British Prime Minister whose policy of appeasement with Adolph Hitler managed to make World War II more complicated. (Somewhat of an understatement, but keep reading, please...)
But stop trying to see if Neville Chamberlain is an anagram for Charles Reed. It isn't, even if the appeasement parallels are very interesting.
Neville Chamberlain
Charles Reed
The details of how the 2 days per month faculty furloughs will work have to be negotiated between the California Faculty Association and Reed. But if earlier negotiations this summer are any indication, he won't negotiate anything.
What he has is cash to get through the fall semester, and now enough time to begin the process of faculty layoffs. I suspect he would have liked to have started the layoffs at the beginning of the summer, but figured it wouldn't fly politically.
Word of advice to young, untenured faculty: Tune up your resume quick - and consider what else you might do besides teach in the CSU.
Faculty reactions should be very interesting. Because a traditional furlough won't work (the result of having teaching schedules that are all over the place, timewise.), it could be that faculty will just figure out how to do 9.75 percent less work.
One formula might be easy: Faculty teaching four classes - and who also have three office hours per week - could reduce their class time (12 hours per week) and office hours (3 hours per week) and their prep time (as much as one hour of prep per class hour) by 9.75 percent.
In a 15-week semester, that would mean cutting out about 40 hours of work (class time, office hours and prep time) during the semester. (Trust me on the math, please.)
Will faculty consider something like this? Some will, some won't.
Regardless, with students paying 30 percent more in tuition this semester and faculty getting paid nearly 10 percent less, we have a near perfect storm in the California State University brewing and ready to hit.
California furlough sign
They also voted that they have about as much confidence in CSU Chancellor Charles Reed as England did in the late Neville Chamberlain, the British Prime Minister whose policy of appeasement with Adolph Hitler managed to make World War II more complicated. (Somewhat of an understatement, but keep reading, please...)
But stop trying to see if Neville Chamberlain is an anagram for Charles Reed. It isn't, even if the appeasement parallels are very interesting.
Neville Chamberlain
Charles Reed
The details of how the 2 days per month faculty furloughs will work have to be negotiated between the California Faculty Association and Reed. But if earlier negotiations this summer are any indication, he won't negotiate anything.
What he has is cash to get through the fall semester, and now enough time to begin the process of faculty layoffs. I suspect he would have liked to have started the layoffs at the beginning of the summer, but figured it wouldn't fly politically.
Word of advice to young, untenured faculty: Tune up your resume quick - and consider what else you might do besides teach in the CSU.
Faculty reactions should be very interesting. Because a traditional furlough won't work (the result of having teaching schedules that are all over the place, timewise.), it could be that faculty will just figure out how to do 9.75 percent less work.
One formula might be easy: Faculty teaching four classes - and who also have three office hours per week - could reduce their class time (12 hours per week) and office hours (3 hours per week) and their prep time (as much as one hour of prep per class hour) by 9.75 percent.
In a 15-week semester, that would mean cutting out about 40 hours of work (class time, office hours and prep time) during the semester. (Trust me on the math, please.)
Will faculty consider something like this? Some will, some won't.
Regardless, with students paying 30 percent more in tuition this semester and faculty getting paid nearly 10 percent less, we have a near perfect storm in the California State University brewing and ready to hit.
California furlough sign
Saturday, July 04, 2009
A lot of questions about university furloughs
SACRAMENTO, Calif., USA - The downward spiral of the finances of the state of California have come to the California State University in the form of a $583.8 million cut to the overall 23- campus system budget for the coming year.
After years of cutting the budgets of these 23 campuses over and over, this one has pushed the university administration to jump on the furlough bandwagon, made popular by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) as he struggles with a struggling state legislature and a whopping $26 billion state budget problem.
Schwarzenegger just added a third monthly furlough day for state workers, giving them an effective 15-percent pay cut in total.
In the CSU, a sketchy proposal has been floated by the central administration for two furlough days per month - about a 10.78 pay cut for all CSU employees. But because the CSU has binding agreements with the three unions representing the employees, each unit must vote to accept the furlough idea.
Two unions have voted to accept the idea of tw0-day per month furloughs, but the faculty - and its bargaining unit The California Faculty Association - have questions. A lot of questions.
The furlough proposal would reduce the proposed deficit, but leave as much as $309 million yet to be cut. That's $309 million out of a $583.8 reduction in funds. And at this point, Chancellor Charles Reed and the CSU Trustees are not saying how they would cut the budget sufficiently to cover this $309 million. In fact, through spokesmen, they have given the definite impression they haven't pondered it fully yet.
Uh-oh...
And when faculty have asked if agreeing to the furloughs would guarantee there would be no faculty layoffs - just for this academic year - the response has been that the administration won't guarantee anything.
Uh-oh, redux...
With $309 million not accounted for, it's easy to see why the administration wants to keep its options open. This total $583.8 million cut is unprecedented and will likely damage the university system in ways hard to imagine.
Still, before faculty vote to voluntarily reduce their salaries, the CSU Trustees should come clean about how they are planning to deal with the balance of the $309 million budget reduction.
If it is layoffs - in addition to the furloughs - the trustees need to say so. And they should be honest and put some numbers with the announcement.
If it is massive student fee hikes (30-percent fee hikes and higher are reportedly under discussion), those numbers should announced sooner rather than later.
And if the CSU Trustees and administration are planning both? Well, school starts in just seven weeks.
After years of cutting the budgets of these 23 campuses over and over, this one has pushed the university administration to jump on the furlough bandwagon, made popular by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) as he struggles with a struggling state legislature and a whopping $26 billion state budget problem.
Schwarzenegger just added a third monthly furlough day for state workers, giving them an effective 15-percent pay cut in total.
In the CSU, a sketchy proposal has been floated by the central administration for two furlough days per month - about a 10.78 pay cut for all CSU employees. But because the CSU has binding agreements with the three unions representing the employees, each unit must vote to accept the furlough idea.
Two unions have voted to accept the idea of tw0-day per month furloughs, but the faculty - and its bargaining unit The California Faculty Association - have questions. A lot of questions.
The furlough proposal would reduce the proposed deficit, but leave as much as $309 million yet to be cut. That's $309 million out of a $583.8 reduction in funds. And at this point, Chancellor Charles Reed and the CSU Trustees are not saying how they would cut the budget sufficiently to cover this $309 million. In fact, through spokesmen, they have given the definite impression they haven't pondered it fully yet.
Uh-oh...
And when faculty have asked if agreeing to the furloughs would guarantee there would be no faculty layoffs - just for this academic year - the response has been that the administration won't guarantee anything.
Uh-oh, redux...
With $309 million not accounted for, it's easy to see why the administration wants to keep its options open. This total $583.8 million cut is unprecedented and will likely damage the university system in ways hard to imagine.
Still, before faculty vote to voluntarily reduce their salaries, the CSU Trustees should come clean about how they are planning to deal with the balance of the $309 million budget reduction.
If it is layoffs - in addition to the furloughs - the trustees need to say so. And they should be honest and put some numbers with the announcement.
If it is massive student fee hikes (30-percent fee hikes and higher are reportedly under discussion), those numbers should announced sooner rather than later.
And if the CSU Trustees and administration are planning both? Well, school starts in just seven weeks.
Thursday, November 06, 2008
Exactly why did California recall Gray Davis?
SACRAMENTO, Calif., USA - It was only five years ago that then-Governor Gray Davis was booted out of office because of looming budget deficits.
And it was the same five years ago that Arnold Schwarzenegger stepped up to the plate and became governor on a platform of reform, fiscal prudence and, ahem, balancing the budget.
It's a lot easier to do things in the movies when the script is written your way, right governor?
Today, Schwarzenegger stepped in front of the television cameras to outline how he thinks the state should deal with an $11 billion problem, a problem that seems to grow every time someone decides to run the deficit numbers again. Maybe they should lock up all the calculators at the Department of Finance and just keep printing state checks. It seems to work for the federal government.
Governor Schwarzenegger shows the depth of the problem
The governor is proposing a 1.5 percent hike in the state sales tax - a tax hike which GOP members of the legislature will not approve, even with Schwarzenegger's massive biceps twisting their arms. On the other side, he says it's also time to take another whack out of all education budgets, including $132 million from the University of California and the California State University.
As mentioned here last week, the Chancellor of the CSU, Charles Reed, already came up with $31.3 million when the governor asked for voluntary contributions to solve the fiscal crisis.
The state is in an ever-tightening fiscal corner, a result of voters approving so many bonds and initiatives over the last 30 years - all of which require special payments here and there. The state legislature and governor really don't have much maneuvering room, except to go after school budgets which represent about half of the state's general fund.
And schools have their own legal mandate (Proposition 98) for how much money they are supposed to receive from state coffers, a mandate that is in the process of being suspended and/or simply ignored as the legislature and governor watch the budget deficit growing.
So what's to be done?
The sales tax hike - the one that GOP leaders are going to oppose and block - is absolutely required. Not that any member of the Republican party will agree and vote for it. Republican Assemblyman Jeff Denham's email to journalists hit my mailbox before the ink was dry on the governor's proposal.
Denham memo to the press
But what about reducing spending?
Can the CSU and the UC take a $132 million reduction? Probably, though there will be plenty of squealing and a dozens of high level administrative conferences (with concomitant travel expenses) on how to handle it.
Can K-12 (and community colleges) really take a $2.5 billion reduction?
Doubtful, not if the public expects things to run as they are.
Run as they are? Hmmm... Maybe it's time for a more radical approach.
Perhaps we should considering shutting virtually all school-house doors, until, oh, say April 1, 2009 - or how about next September? Turn off the lights, the heat, disconnect the telephones and furlough everybody on half-pay, except for administrators and school librarians.
The administrators should get a full-time, unpaid furlough. If there's nobody working, then there are no teachers to administer. The teachers on half-pay can catch up on all the papers they haven't been able to grade and hire themselves out as tutors to students whose parents really want their kids to learn.
And the librarians? Keep the school libraries open and keep the librarians at it on full salary, or maybe with a bonus. If the students still have access to the old technology of books and the not-that-new-technology of computers - and other neat stuff - they will still learn, plenty. Ask any parent of a home-schooled child.
The students might learn enough, perhaps, to offer suggestions to the Legislature on how to deal with the budget deficit and how to avoid the same problem in the future.
Maybe they will learn about Gray Davis, too, and why his recall was mostly about politics, not money.
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