Gov. Brown

CA Senate Jumps Into UC Tuition Fracas

December 10, 2014 By James Poulos 1 Comment

Maybe kids and their parents won’t have to pay higher University of California tuition.

Last month, Gov. Jerry Brown tried to reverse UC President Janet Napolitano’s 25 percent tuition hike over five years. But she outmaneuvered him at a Board of Regents meeting.

Now the California Senate is moving to the head of the class. Senate Bill 15 is by state Sen. Marty Block, D-San Diego. As his website explains:

“The proposal upgrades the State’s current financial aid system so it can support all California students more effectively and provide incentives for completing college within four years. The plan also proposes a higher tuition premium for non-resident UC students and a transition of the Middle Class Scholarship program.”

It was co-introduced by new Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon, D-Los Angeles. The tuition increase for out-of-state students would top $4,000.

Although the UC and CSU systems have expressed interest in the bill, its fate will be out of their hands. The Assembly has not yet offered any enthusiasm.

The bill was a response, according to the San Jose Mercury news, of how Napolitano “put the onus on the Legislature and the governor to repair the damage: If they came up with more money, she suggested, the tuition increases would not need to be as large.”

Ending independence

A more radical bill is Senate Constitutional Amendment 1, by state Sen. Ricardo Lara, D-Bell Gardens. The bipartisan bill was co-authored by Sens. Anthony Cannella, R-Ceres, and Joel Anderson, R-El Cajon.

SCA1 would amendment the California Constitution to take away the UC’s independence.

“The bill doesn’t list specific powers lawmakers would have over UC, where the governor-appointed regents are currently the highest authority,” the Chronicle reported. “But, under the bill, the elected officials would have the final say over any policy approved by the regents, from tuition levels to executive compensation.”

While the UC system has controlled its finances autonomously since the original California Constitution was signed in 1848, the Cal State system faces oversight from Sacramento — an arrangement seen as a model by Lara and Cannella.

As a constitutional amendment, SCA1 would need a two-thirds vote of of both houses of the Legislature to be put before voters in 2016.

Frustration

California voters have not yet weighed in on SCA1, but current polling has showcased their own frustration.

The Public Policy Institute of California found strong opposition to tuition increases and tax increases alike, with 77 percent opposing hikes that hit students, and 58 percent siding against hits to their pocketbooks.

Yet the poll also found just over half of respondents felt funding for public higher education was too low.

The desire for more spending but lower taxes and tuition will be hashed over in the Legislature, by the governor and by voters over the next several years.

This article was originally published by CalWatchdog.com

Filed Under: Top Stories Tagged With: education, Gov. Brown, Jerry Brown, Legislature, UC, University of California

High Speed Rail Strategy – START to Build it and They Will Come!

December 6, 2014 By Joel Fox 9 Comments

The High Speed Rail project found its way into three of the five panels in the Public Policy Institute’s all-day State of Changeconference Wednesday. At the end of the day, you understood the High Speed Rail authority’s strategy to gain support for the project – START to build it and they will come!

In an opening discussion, Nancy McFadden, Executive Secretary to Governor Jerry Brown, said that the need for High Speed Rail is more important now than when voters initially passed the bond in 2008 moving the project forward. She cited the governor’s pledge to reduce carbon emissions and the need to move people around the state that will have 50 million residents by 2025.

Acknowledging but brushing aside obstacles facing the bullet train she said litigation was going well, the Federal government came through with money and the legislature approved cap-and-trade funds to get the project started.

However, this funding is not nearly enough. It appears that Republicans controlling Congress have no interest in continuing funding for the train. No private investors have stepped up to take up a share of the costs promised voters when the High Speed Rail bond was on the ballot. While the cap-and-trade funds are a steady revenue source that can be leveraged with borrowing, there is still a big funding gap for the project.

Jeff Morales, chief executive officer of the High Speed Rail project, argued in a later panel that the funding would arrive. He said the message from the High Speed Rail authority to Washington is “leave us alone” for two years. In other words, the project has the resources to get the project started and then he expects Washington would get on board once they see progress.

Clearly, advocates for the project believe that once the project is started there will be no stopping it.

McFadden said when people see the project is being built they will support it. Morales called the project an investment in both California and its people. He noted that 30-percent of the contracts will go to small businesses in the area and that in a few years, “Everyone in the Valley will know someone involved in the program.”

He said that regional chambers of commerce and all large city mayors supported the project.

Morales argued that the two tracks being constructed would substitute for 2,500 of highway lane miles that would be needed to transport people around the state in the future. But that assumes the predictions on ridership are accurate. Experts have questioned not only the ridership projections, but also the projected ticket costs per rider and the speed in which the rail authority says it will take the bullet train to cover the distance between Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Assemblyman Rocky Chavez offered a different perspective on the train in a third panel discussion. He said the train was actually in your garage. Advancing technology will see electric, driverless cars running on the roads moving along together like a train, he said. Referring to the building of the High Speed Rail, he added, ‘and you don’t need to rip up farmland.’

Train advocates are not about to wait for that future. Not when the strategy appears to be start putting down the track and see if anyone can stop them.

This article was originally publish on Fox and Hounds Daily

Filed Under: Top Stories Tagged With: bullet train, Gov. Brown, high speed rail, Jeff Morales

Gov. Brown, CalPERS Face Off In 2015

December 6, 2014 By James Poulos 2 Comments

A piece of this year’s politics moving into 2015 is Gov. Jerry Brown’s tiff with the California Public Employees’ Retirement System. In particular, Brown remains steamed over CalPERS’ use of temporary pay to pad pensions. In a letter to CalPERS, he said the action “would improperly allow temporary pay resulting from short-term promotions to count towards workers’ pensions.”

Divisions on CalPERS’ Board of Administration, where Brown can count on allied appointees, opened around the controversy. Although Brown’s side in the controversy lost a close vote, plans have already been hatched for a rematch.

The bout has been a long time in coming. As summer turned to fall, Controller John Chiang took CalPERS to task for juicing up pensions while dishing them out at unsustainably high levels. Chiang was just elected state treasurer, so he will remain an ex officio member of the CalPERS board.

In late August, Brown tasked his team with doing all it could legally to prevent CalPERS from engaging in the pension spiking.

In that procedure, a public pension fund passes rules that allow pension levels to be adjusted significantly upward by taking temporary or exceptional kinds of work and pay into account. CalPERS had pushed the credibility of these measures to the breaking point, in effect securing special pension increases simply because employees did their jobs, such as librarians shelving books.

But Brown made a point to object only to CalPERS’ temporary pay rules, which allowed unique, fleeting raises for non-permanent work to be factored into pension setting.

By mid-September, Chiang had concluded that CalPERS’ pension spiking was unacceptable in theory, but unpunishable in practice. CalPERS’ “available resources” for spiking oversight, Chiang concluded, “limit its annual reviews to only 45, or 1.5 percent of the more than 3,000 reporting entities. At this current rate, pension spiking could go undetected for an extended period of time, as each reporting entity would be reviewed, at the earliest, every 66 years.”

The task of auditing CalPERS’ shenanigans had to fall, in other words, to the Legislature.

As a matter of common sense, it was much more attractive for Brown to try to exercise oversight by reforming the rules CalPERS used to set pensions, instead of by pouring the state’s time and energy into auditing those rules after scores of changes went into effect.

A tough matchup

That is why, as the Sacramento Bee reported, Brown’s appointees on the CalPERS board proceeded to force a vote on removing temporary pay from the fund’s cornucopia of pension-spiking sweeteners. Unfortunately for Brown, the vote failed, splitting 7-5 in favor of retaining the objectionable rule.

In an interview, state human resources head Richard Gillihan — a Brown ally on the board who voted against temporary-pay pension spiking — told the Bee that 2015 would offer another shot at reform. “What should or shouldn’t be included in final compensation is absolutely something that we think needs broader revisitation,” he said. “We hope to see that sooner rather than later.”

According to the fund’s website, “The CalPERS Board of Administration consists of 13 members — six elected ‘member representatives,’ three appointed representatives, and four ‘ex officio’ representatives. The elected candidates will serve a four-year term and represent active and retired members in all aspects of CalPERS’ business – including benefit and membership issues, and oversight and investment of Fund assets.”

But as the Bee observed, “The board’s composition will lean more heavily toward labor’s interests next year.” The Service Employees International Union shelled out some $250,000 to secure the election of incoming member Theresa Taylor.

Even though California taxpayers are on the hook for any CalPERS shortfall, they have no say in the six elected “member” representatives. Those representatives are chosen, according to CalPERS, by ballots “mailed to eligible, active state and public agency CalPERS members.”

Leadership trouble

A complication, however, has added further difficulties to the equation. September also saw the board approve the appointment of Ted Eliopoulos, former CalPERS senior investment officer for real estate, as its new chief investment officer.

That provoked the ire of J.J. Jelincic, a board member unable to vote against Eliopoulos because he was recused for being on leave. Jelincic told Pensions and Investments that Eliopoulos lacked “the temperament and management skills” needed for the job.

Pensions and Investments noted, “He said Mr. Eliopoulos relied too much on the advice of consultants, made the wrong decision to increase CalPERS’ exposure to riskier non-core real estate assets before the financial crisis, and played favorites with employees.”

The enmity has served to cloud Brown’s prospects even further for charting an effective course toward CalPERS reform.