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Opinion Editorial
Emergency Budget Solutions that Protect Student Services and Strengthen Patient Care

All Californians have a direct stake in the future of our vibrant and dynamic public system of higher education. Today, as the state delves deeper into fiscal crisis, the University of California is flush in cash. In spite of favorable financial ratings, the UC Regents have declared a financial emergency granting unprecedented powers to university President Mark Yudof to unilaterally impose draconian-like budgetary actions.

President Yudof’s misguided choices call for locking out 2,600 freshman students this year, slashing the teaching faculty by firing 4,000 lecturers, cutting the pay of core student and patient care workers who already live on brink of poverty by upwards to 8%, all the while approving lavish Wall Street style pay hikes and bonuses for top University bureaucrats. Last year alone the top 50 bureaucrats were paid a whopping $50 million dollars in bonuses, that’s nearly $600,000 dollar per person. The money for executive bonuses are coming from increased student fees, furloughs of professors and layoffs of workers.

Unfortunately, we’ve come to expect this behavior from Wall Street-hedge fund managers, not public employees who are entrusted to manage billions of dollars of our hard earned-taxpayer monies. UC is putting families on the streets and raising the cost of tuition while execs get pay raises without question. Every single taxpayer, student and their parents should voice their anger over President Yudof using our tax dollars to give themselves raises. Enough is enough, Californians deserve better. Taxpayers deserve accountability when it comes to the public treasury. UC executives must make better choices that protect core student services and patient care.

The University of California, AFSCME Local 3299, proposes alternative emergency budget measures that protect core student and patient care services, while redirecting funds from areas that can most withstand temporary reductions. These reductions can provide a stop-gap until UC’s spending priorities are changed to permanently reflect UC’s intended mission as a public University.

The fight to protect student services and strengthen patient care is a fight less about budgets and more about correcting the University’s crisis of leadership. Students, workers and the campus community call on President Yudof to adopt a real solution that puts students, patients and Californians first.

By Lakesha Harrison, President AFSCME Local 3299

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