Regents to discuss midyear fee increase; campus leaders outline budget-saving moves

by Clifton B. Parker
September 11, 2009

The UC Board of Regents this month will discuss the possibility of a midyear fee increase for students, as well as a fee increase for 2010-11, to help the UC system deal with an unprecedented shortfall in state funding to the UC system.

No action is planned until a subsequent meeting, but UC administrators are already defending the increases.

UC Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi, for one, told The Sacramento Bee editorial board this week that fee increases would be painful but need to be viewed in the context of other forms of pain. She said the academic quality that students and parents expect from UC is being threatened by the elimination of courses, increases in class size, the dismantling of entire programs and the possibility of losing stellar professors.

"The cumulative effect of these actions could devalue a UC degree," Katehi said.

Katehi already is appealing for unity, understanding and support in the face of other challenges on her campus:

• Academic and administrative units are cutting an additional $10.3 million from their budgets.

• A yearlong furlough plan started Sept. 1 for many employees — faculty and staff, systemwide — resulting in pay cuts of 4 percent to 10 percent. Furloughs range from 11 to 26 days (at UC Davis, 11 of these days will be campus closures).

• Some faculty members are angry they cannot take their unpaid time on instructional days; doing so, the faculty members say, would show how much the UC system is hurting. Professors argue further that they must carry on with their research and public service, even while on furlough.

Dozens of UC Davis professors and lecturers are among nearly 500 from around the system who have posted their names on a Web site supporting a faculty walkout on Sept. 24, the first day of fall instruction.

But administrators and other faculty members say a walkout would punish students unfairly — on top of higher fees, fewer class offerings and more students crowding into lecture halls.

In her Sept. 4 appeal to the campus community, Katehi wrote: "Like you, we worry about the long-term consequences (of furloughs) if such erosions in salary are not reversed,” the chancellor said. She noted President Mark G. Yudof’s “strong commitment” to end the furlough program next summer: “He knows that competitive salaries are essential to preserving UC’s quality.”

The chancellor said faculty and staff, together, “can turn challenge into opportunity through reexamination and creative reinvention, and through aggressively pursuing new sources of revenue.”

In a budget update Aug. 28, Katehi and Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor Enrique J. Lavernia outlined some of the ways in which the campus may reinvent itself, based on recommendations from five budget subcommittees:

• Administration — The Office of Administration and the Office of Resource Management and Planning are taking steps to consolidate, thus bringing all of the campus’s citylike services into the same unit.

• Instruction and Research — Faculty salaries for summer instruction will be capped effective next year in a move that will generate annual savings estimated at about $250,000.

• Student Services — Student Affairs is considering some limitations in service hours, but with a caveat for consistency in scheduling, so students will know when services will be available.

• Capital and Space Planning — By reconfiguring space assignments, the campus can reduce expenses for off-campus leases — as part of a plan that would save more than $1 million over the next two to three years.

• Self-Supporting Activities — The campus is streamlining the rate process to strike a more appropriate balance between local and central oversight.

The chancellor and provost also addressed the decision made earlier this year to slow, but not freeze, faculty hiring.

“Instead, each dean was asked to develop and implement an approach to faculty recruitment that best balances the success they had with recent hires, the longer-term goals of the college, division or school, and the current financial realities that they are managing. This decision was motivated by our desire to maintain momentum and excellence, despite the financial hardships involved.”

Katehi and Lavernia said an initiative is in the works to ensure that the campus “can pursue opportunities to hire outstanding senior faculty who will enhance the excellence of UC Davis.”

They said the seed money for such hiring will come from the central campus share of the indirect cost recovery funds from new federal stimulus research awards.