This story was reported for San Diego News Network on December 8, 2009.
You know how the holiday season tends to make everything seem a little warmer? Problems seem more minuscule? Unfortunately, it’s not happening this holiday season, especially not in Sacramento. California’s staggering budget deficit continues to loom over the most populated state, despite the joyful season. Here’s your Tuesday dose of CBCD.
Higher education debate: California lawmakers who made budget cuts to higher education in July are still getting a lot of heat and opinions are being published in media outlets throughout the country.
Let’s start with Masao Suzuki, of Fight Back News. Suzuki writes that a new rise of activism is happening in California but criticizes moves made by the legislature.
“In the middle of cutting spending and raising taxes for working people, the California government has given businesses tax cuts worth almost $2 billion dollars a year! Educational administrators such as UC President Yudoff, who has a pay package that costs more than $800,000 a year and a mansion that costs about $300,000 a year to maintain, are rewarded with stunning pay increases.
On college campuses across the state, students, staff and faculty are mobilizing to oppose tuition hikes and cutting programs. They are raising the slogan of “chop from the top” to cut administrative costs and protect classes and student services. A new tide of activism is growing on California college campuses.”
Dennis Smith of the California Federation for Teachers writes in the California Progress Report that the legislature and education leaders have “undermined” the goal of the country to offer affordable education.
“The UC Regents, the CSU Trustees, and many of our elected officials have bought into a mistaken notion that we should run our educational institutions with a strict business purpose – complete with an excessive focus on short-term financial management tactics, simplistic non-research-based learning metrics, outsourcing services or hiring temporary employees whenever possible, and increasing use of counterproductive outcome based funding schemes.”
Smith notes that the “Joint Committee to Develop a Master Plan for Education” in 2002 offered numerous recommendations that would keep higher education affordable but only some were actually put into law. He argues that the other recommendations can still be taken to reduce the pain of the budget cuts.
Finally, and just because I think it’s great when out-of-state publications write about California, here are the thoughts of Mary Sanchez of Kansas City.
Sanchez’s commentary states, “Too many see the dreams of college slip away.” Like Suzuki, she notes the activism seen in the past weeks by student protesters and correlates it to that of the 1960s during the peak of the Vietnam War.
“But the issue at the heart of the unrest was not war. It was something many would consider more mundane: tuition hikes. Unlike back in the day, the protests were shut down relatively quickly by campus police with assists by other law enforcement. Students at Berkeley who snuck into a building with the intent of occupying it were simply charged with trespassing and released for Thanksgiving break.”
Although, she says, the protests have seen major attention — she wonders when reform will happen.
“Oh, sure, parents and students grumble at the rising costs. Chancellor’s grouse and fume as they slice staff and increase class sizes. But there has yet to be the sort of concerted outcry that could force a reworking of how the nation’s public colleges and universities are funded.
Few are discussing ways to maintain, much less extend, the opportunities that higher education makes available to hardworking students who want to rise in the world. And that’s remarkably shortsighted, given the evidence that holding a college degree is imperative to achieving the financial stability families need to thrive.”
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Team UC, CSU and community colleges: Monday saw the joint protest of leaders from the University of California, California State University and community college systems reiterating the promise of an affordable education.
According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the leaders asked the legislature and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to guarantee a specific amount to education each year.
“All three education leaders said the challenge involves stabilizing funding from the state rather than making sweeping changes to the 1960 Master Plan for Higher Education, which serves as a model for access, affordability and academic excellence….Each system has asked the governor and lawmakers to increase their budgets next fiscal year to make up for the recent cuts. However, the state is already facing a nearly $21 billion gap in its fiscal 2010-2011 budget during the next year and a half.”
A response from the legislature or the Gov. wasn’t noted in the article.
Undocumented immigrants and health care: This debate is no longer just in Washington D.C., but is in Sacramento too.
In an opinion piece by Dan Walters, published in the San Jose Mercury News, he writes that the lack of health care to undocumented immigrants would hurt California more in light of the state’s $20-something million hole.
“The debate affects approximately 2 million illegal immigrants in California who lack health insurance. State officials have conducted no detailed studies of the impact because the bills themselves are constantly changing. It appears, however, that the state budget would benefit should illegal immigrants be included, but would incur even higher costs if they are excluded – largely because it’s virtually certain that national health care would expand eligibility for Medi-Cal, the program now serving about 7 million low-income Californians, by raising income limits.”
Funding water: Last month, the legislature passed a major water bill and the governor signed it to help revamp California’s weakening water supply. Although Californians still have to vote on measures of the water package in November 2010, the San Jose Mercury News is wondering where the state will get the money to fund its water ideas.
“Permanent funding for the signature policy initiatives in the deal- from a panel created to govern the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta to new efforts to crack down on water theft – have yet to be identified. But one likely source is fees levied against water districts, which could lead to higher rates for users.
There also have been whispers that lawmakers – sensitive to “pork” claims and the state’s dismal debt picture- might try to shrink the $11.14 billion bond approved as part of the deal, a bid to help it win voter support next November.
Both issues reflect the loose ends and lingering discomfort in the wake of the landmark deal, meant to stabilize the state’s water supply and rescue the fragile delta after decades of futility. Together, they raise questions about whether the package will wind up as far-reaching as billed.”
For more info on the water system revamp, check out a blog by Assemblymember Mary Salas (D-San Diego).
Hoa Quach is the political editor of the San Diego News Network.