By Rachel Makabi
Daily Bruin Reporter
The University of California has decided to allocate its entire
2 percent increase in state funding toward salary raises, which
leaves “core costs” at the university without any
increased funding.
Though further funding in core costs ““ which include
instructional equipment and technology, building maintenance and
library resources ““ were meant to offset losses incurred
after budget cuts made in the early ’90s, the UC revoked the
extra funding before these items recovered.
Under the 2000 Partnership Agreement with the governor, the UC
is supposed to receive an annual 5 percent increase in state
funding, with 1 percent going toward core costs and 4 percent
toward salary increases.
But as the state’s fiscal situation worsened this year,
Gov. Gray Davis revised his partnership plan in May, reducing the
promised 5 percent increase in funding to 2 percent.
While the situation will probably stabilize by early next year,
vice chancellor of budget and finance Steve Olsen said he
anticipates that funds will not begin to recover as quickly as they
did after the early ’90s.
“In the early ’90s, the UC lost $430 million in
funding,” Olsen said. “Since that time, the new funding
has been more than $430 million, but a lot of it has been directed
toward faculty and staff increases and to support student
workload.”
According to the Legislative Analyst’s Office analysis of
the 2001-02 Budget Bill, the state issued an increase of $11
million for building maintenance at the UC ““ this amount was
later revoked under the May revision of the Partnership plan.
Due to lack of funding, deferred maintenance remains a main
problem at the University, according to the UC Office of the
President’s 2002-03 budget for current operations.
UCOP’s budget attributes deferred maintenance to annual
underfunding and the fact that only a fraction of the
University’s budget was used to replace worn-out
buildings.
“While gains are made on the positive side, continued
underfunding of the budget for ongoing maintenance prevents
significant progress from being realized,” the document
states.
Though the revised partnership plan revoked a $5 million
increase to the UC library system as a whole, UCLA’s library
still received an increase due to funds from other sources.
According to Olsen, increases in the library fund ““ some
of which came from the chancellor ““ totalled $2 million, but
library spokeswoman Dawn Setzer said the increase was closer to $2
million.
It is not likely the library will continue to receive an
increase in funds next year, Olsen said.
“It will be difficult to do that under the present
circumstances,” Olsen said. “We don’t have the
funds in hand.”
Library officials declined to comment about how they would deal
with any cuts.
In the early ’90s, UC libraries coped with cuts by closing
branch libraries and reducing operating hours and the number of
reference libraries on hand.
The state has also stopped issuing $14 million increases in
funding for instructional equipment ““ such as computers,
software, online developmental curriculum and upgrades.
The university is trying to maintain quality in light of the
decreases in funding and bleak budget outlook, said UC spokesman
Brad Hayward.
“Our goal is to maintain quality as best as we can, even
in an environment of limited resources,” Hayward said.
“The extent to which we can do that is dependent on the
financial level of support.”