Friday, November 15, 1996
REGENTS:
Reg fee hikes would pay for increased spending if state
doesn’tBy Tiffany Lauter and Phillip Carter
Daily Bruin Staff
SAN FRANCISCO — Deferring its decision on student fees until
January, the Board of Regents committee passed the University of
California’s 1997-98 budget while setting a series of priorities
for funding if more money becomes available.
Though the regents passed only the expenditures side of their
budget and not the revenues side, their vote implied that student
fees would rise by nearly 10 percent unless Gov. Pete Wilson or the
California Legislature buys out the fee increase.
By passing only the spending half of the budget, regents and UC
officials expressed a desire to put the albatross of a student-fee
increase around the state government’s neck, making a fee hike its
responsibility and not the regents’.
"We are not asking you to take action on any fee items today,"
said UC Budget Director Larry Hershman, adding that he would take a
"laundry list" of funding priorities to the Wilson administration
during next month’s budget negotiations for consideration.
That list includes faculty and staff salary increases, a
student-fee buyout, expansion of academic outreach, funding
increase for the Industry-University Cooperative Research Program
and additional funds for the maintenance of UC buildings.
Based on the financial pledges in December and January from
Wilson and legislators, Hershman and Richard Atkinson, president of
the UC system, would then bring the revenue half of the budget to
the regents, which includes any student-fee increases.
For the first time this year, UC students will also be asked to
pay an "instructional technology fee" on top of their current
registration fees and any possible increases. That fee Â
scheduled to start at $40 this year and rise to $200 per year by
2000 Â would go to fund improvements in the UC’s systemwide
computer system and each campus’ educational technology
programs.
Student government officials from around the state have decried
the fee as a thinly veiled addition to tuition.
"This new fee is completely unprecedented … To have a separate
fee aside from registration fees is nothing more than tuition,"
argued UC Davis graduate external chair Jennifer Reich.
Yet UC officials maintained steadfast support for the
student-fee increase, basing their views on the 1995 "Compact with
Higher Education," an agreement between Wilson and California’s
three separate college systems to increase their funding. Built
into that agreement was a pledge by UC officials to match the
Wilson administration’s funding increases with funding increases of
their own, through student fees or other means.
In the first two years of the compact, UC officials proposed
budgets that contained built-in fee increases. But this year, the
regents passed the expenditures side first in the hopes that the
Legislature would fund the difference that a student-fee hike would
give to the UC system. For both the 1995-96 and 1996-97 budgets,
the Legislature did eventually buy out the fee hike, allowing
student fees to remain level at $4,111 per year for California
residents.
Atkinson and other UC officials said they hoped a similar buyout
would happen this year, but in the absence of such generosity from
Sacramento, the university would implement its fee increase and
budget as planned.
While the vast majority of regents expressed support for
Atkinson and this year’s budget strategy, Lt. Gov. Gray Davis and
Student Regent Jess Bravin blasted the fiscal plan for its reliance
on students as "cash cows."
"The university is not student-friendly," said Davis, who is a
regent by virtue of his elected office. "Nothing is going up 10
percent a year  not CPI (the Consumer Price Index), not
income, not anything … This trend is going to bleed every last
dime out of the students."
Other regents, while less graphic in their criticism, were
equally skeptical of the university’s policy of asking students for
more money when the state government was unwilling to give any.
"You cannot balance the budget on the backs of students," said
Regent Tirso Del Junco.
Nonetheless, the proposed budget sailed out of the regents’
Finance Committee with near unanimous support. It will be
considered by the full Board of Regents on Friday, in a vote widely
considered to be a formality.
The budget passed by the regents includes a number of changes
since last year. Among these, the plan allows for a 1-percent
increase in the UC’s total student population, or an increase of
approximately 1,500 students.
Additionally, the budget allocates funds to a faculty and staff
salary increase, designed to bring those employees’ pay in line
with the current job market. Currently, UC salaries lag 6 percent
behind other universities’ salaries.
Also, the proposed student-fee increase carries with it a
concurrent increase in financial aid. This follows established UC
policy, where one third of all student fee money is returned back
to students in the form of financial aid money.