CPB Position on the Budgetary Crisis

The Council on Planning and Budget believes that in this time of financial difficulties and potentially severe cuts, the Senate must come together behind a clear position on budgetary issues. The following statement is our best effort at articulating such a position.

1. We uphold the principle that administrative cuts, if needed, should be made outside the core teaching/research mission of the University. In particular, with regard to cuts in the allocation to “administration and libraries,” the library’s core functions must be protected.

2. Both the faculty and the students of the University must be made aware of the fact that, without increasing student fees to make them commensurate with those charged by other major public universities, the University of California will not be able to retain, let alone increase, its present high ranking. It should be made clear that increased fees, one third of which would be allocated to need-based scholarships, should permit greater rather than less access by the underrepresented population.

3. We endorse a program of differential fee increases for professional schools, proportional to the economic benefits they confer on their graduates. A formula should be established whereby a portion of the additional fees generated by these schools is shared with other academic units, particularly the College of Letters and Science.

4. Professional schools should be encouraged to develop fully funded executive/ professional programs, which provide resources that can be used to defray part of the schools’ core costs.

5. We support the establishment of a regular, formalized calendar for the planning and budget process, including a policy that holds all units accountable for their plans and for adherence to them.  All units should be required to provide annual strategic plans or updates to the administration and the Budget Council. Strategic plans are not only beneficial to the university’s resource allocation process, they are also instrumental in providing the Senate with an objective basis for its input to the dynamic of shared governance. This is all the more pressing in a time of budgetary crisis.

6. Although we are opposed to one-size-fits-all formulas, we welcome greater transparency and rationalization of faculty workload, which has until now been determined by a set of uncoordinated local “cultures.”

7. Faculty should be encouraged--and helped where necessary--to aggressively seek external sources of funding in the form of grants and gifts for research and fellowship support. This has particular relevance in areas where faculty may be unfamiliar with the grant process.

1/30/03


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