After weeks of deadlock and political squabbling, the California Assembly passed a budget Tuesday that spells out $410 million in cuts to the University of California – cuts that will most likely lead to funding slashes in all UC non-instructional programs, increases in student fees and enrollment growth caps for the 2004-2005 academic year. The budget, which cleared the state Senate on Sunday night after being nearly a month overdue, was passed by the Assembly by a 56-22 vote. The Assembly approved the budget after a record-breaking marathon session of 27 hours during which Assembly Speaker Herb Wesson, D-Los Angeles/Culver City, locked the doors of the room so no one could leave. Though Gov. Gray Davis must first sign the budget for it to go into effect, he has indicated that he will do so. The compromise budget attempts to fill a $38.2 billion deficit by cutting spending, raising taxes and heavy borrowing. Even then, lawmakers and economic experts warn that California could still face a $ 8 to 10 billion deficit next year. Under the new budget, the UC will face an additional $111 million in cuts, which come on top of the original $300 million Davis proposed last May. UC officials had supported the May budget, hoping the state would only cut at most another $80.5 million. But with the increase in cuts surpassing their expectations, UC officials face an even greater array of distasteful choices.
Program cuts, enrollment caps anticipated A budget cut of $410 million would mean every non-instructional program at the UC, which includes libraries, outreach, student services and administration, would have to undergo cuts in funding, said Brad Hayward, a spokesman for the UC Office of the President. The UC’s state-funded research program, for example, would be cut 10 percent; student outreach to K-12 communities would be cut by 50 percent, a move Sen. Sheila Kuehl, D-Los Angeles, said would limit awareness of the university among Californians. “It’s unfortunate. There’s always going to be a certain number of families that aim for the UC, but there are also a lot of families in California that don’t know it’s within their reach,” she said. In addition, the Legislature has warned that it does not anticipate the funding of enrollment growth at either UC or California State University campuses for the 2004-2005 academic year. “That’s a very grim warning sign for next year,” Hayward said, who added that it was an “unprecedented” move for the UC in recent memory. According to the Master Plan for Higher Education, which dictates the state’s educational policy, the UC must provide access to all eligible students. However, UC President Richard Atkinson stated in July that, given the state budget cuts, the UC might have to curtail enrollment in 2004-2005 by at least 5,000 students. The 7 percent enrollment growth projected for the 2003-2004 academic year is fully funded and should not be affected, Hayward said. But the budget did leave a small silver lining for university enrollment. The Dual Admissions Plan, which would grant admission to certain students provided that they first follow a strict two-year community college regimen, will receive $1.2 million from the state this year. The plan was passed two years ago but hasn’t gotten off the ground due to lack of funding.
Merced campus delayed The state budget also delays by one year the opening of the newest UC campus, Merced, said James Grant, a campus spokesman. UC officials intended Merced to open in 2004 and serve 1,000 undergraduates. However, specific language in the state budget would delay the plan by one year. “We’d be disappointed by the delay, but we’ll still be moving forward to serve students in 2005,” Grant said. Construction at UC Merced will not be delayed as most of the $280 million in funding is in state bonds. Until 2005, Merced officials plan to finish construction on their buildings and continue to recruit faculty and staff. Merced may serve some graduate students in 2004 if newly hired professors bring students with them, Grant added.
Additional fee hikes likely Besides program cuts, students may have to absorb a greater fee hike, which would come on top of the 25 percent increase the UC Board of Regents approved in July. When the regents approved the fee hike, they also voted to give Atkinson the discretionary power to raise fees by an additional 5 percent if the budget crisis mandated such an increase. Atkinson, who is retiring in October, indicated that he would raise fees if the state cut more from the UC’s budget than was anticipated in July. Because the budget passed in the Assembly does cut $30 million more than the regents projected, such a fee increase seems likely. UC Berkeley and some graduate schools, which are on the semester system and begin in mid-August, have already begun charging students the 5 percent fee increase and said they would refund the difference if Atkinson hiked fees anything less than 5 percent. Student Regent Matt Murray said he was disappointed the state had given the university so few options besides cutting programs and raising fees. “The state,” he said, “has dropped the ball,” adding that taxes should have been raised to prevent cuts to education. Kuehl said the end result of the budget was ugly but that the legislature had done the best it could under a bad situation. “Although we’ve cut everything to the bone, we’ve done our best to stem the bleeding,” she said. But the budget does not by any means stem all the bleeding. With a multi-billion-dollar deficit rolling into next year and dismal financial forecasts, some people are wondering what sort of budget crisis the state will face in 2004. “Every expectation is that the budget is going to get worse because most of the solution was to push the problem onto next year,” Hayward said. “When they start to tackle that, it’s expected that all state agencies, including the UC, will take deeper cuts.”
With reports from Charlotte Hsu and Robert Salonga, Bruin Senior Staff, and wire services.