For Immediate Release:

Date: 1/5/2012

Governor Brown’s 2012/13 Budget a Mixed Bag for California students

Sacramento, CA- Governor Jerry Brown released his 2012/13 California budget today, announcing huge cuts to social services and welfare. The budget proposal also includes a revenue proposal for November. K-12 and higher education will receive “trigger cuts” if this proposal is unsuccessful.

K-12 schools, community colleges, the UC and CSU will receive modest increases in funding under the Governor’s proposal, with the UC system receiving a 13% increase in general funds from last year’s budget. However if the Governor’s tax plan is not passed by California voters in November, all state funded education will receive an instant trigger cut, including a $200 million cut to the UC system. “We are happy to hear that higher education could receive a small increase under this proposal and that the Governor put forward a plan for new revenue.  Still, it is concerning that even with this increase; the UC would be funded $700 million less than 2007-2008 levels. Public higher education in our state remains grossly underfunded.” said UCSA President Magana.

The Governor’s revenue plan is a step in the right direction, but it clearly does not go far enough to raise the revenue necessary to fund the state’s needs. “The state immediately needs more revenue to ensure that we do not balance the budget on students and the poor.  This budget only further reinforces the need for greater taxes on big businesses and the wealthiest Californians to help restore our future,” said Magana.

Another alarming piece of the Governor’s proposal is the increase in the academic requirements for students to receive Cal-Grants, which will push approximately 26,000 financially, stressed students off of the very successful college grant program. This only adds to the 15,000 students that were phased out of the program in 2010/11. “Students depend on the Cal-Grant program to assist with rapidly increasing fees. The state should not be reducing accessibility through greater restrictions in the Cal Grant program,”says Magana.

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By Carissa Quiambao
Published on January 10, 2012

Speaker Perez Listens to UC Students Voice their Concerns at LA Meeting
Los Angeles, CA-

The UC Student Association held a meeting today with Speaker John Perez to discuss
the challenges facing the University of California system, UC police brutality, and the UC Student
Association’s campaign to reform raise government revenues to fully fund higher education.
After the rescheduled UC Regents meeting on November 28th and current inquiries into UC Police
brutality, students from throughout the UC are excited today to have this open forum with the
Speaker.
“The meeting with Speaker Perez was very productive. The Speaker listed carefully to our issues and it
is good to know that UC students have such a strong ally in the legislature”, says Joelle Gamble UCSA
Board Member and UCLA External Vice President. This meeting also focused on the December 14th
Joint Information hearing on UC and CSU campus police policies and procedures.
“We also let the Speaker know that over 13,000 UC students have signed postcards in support of our
campaign for new revenue to fund higher education, He was strongly supportive of our efforts” says
Claudia Magana UCSA President .
Along with coalition partners such as the Courage Campaign, California Federation of Teachers and California Calls, UC students have helped to lead the fight to increase revenue in California. Students

look to the Speaker to stand with them and support the movement to protect the affordability, accessibility and quality of the UC system. In the meeting Speaker Perez iterated, “I will continue to engage in an open dialogue with students from our university systems,” Pérez said. “California’s future depends on having an exceptionally well educated workforce, and our UC, CSU and Community Colleges are dynamic economic engines for the state. We must find solutions that do right by students, parents and the people of California.”

“When I became Governor again — 28 years after my last term ended in 1983 — California was facing a $26.6 billion budget deficit. It was the result of years of failing to match spending with tax revenues as budget gimmicks instead of honest budgeting became the norm.

In January, I proposed a budget that combined deep cuts with a temporary extension of some existing taxes. It was a balanced approach that would have finally closed our budget gap.

I asked the legislature to enact this plan and to allow you, the people of California, to vote on it.  I believed that you had the right to weigh in on this important choice: should we decently fund our schools or lower our taxes?  I don’t know how you would have voted, but we will never know.  The Republicans refused to provide the four votes needed to put this measure on the ballot.

Forced to act alone, Democrats went ahead and enacted massive cuts and the first honest on-time budget in a decade. But without the tax extensions, it was simply not possible to eliminate the state’s structural deficit.

The good news is that our financial condition is much better than a year ago. We cut the ongoing budget deficit by more than half, reduced the state’s workforce by about 5500 positions and cut unnecessary expenses like cell phones and state cars. We actually cut state expenses by over $10 billion.  Spending is now at levels not seen since the seventies.  Our state’s credit rating has moved from “negative” to “stable,” laying the foundation for job creation and a stronger economic recovery.

Unfortunately, the deep cuts we made came at a huge cost. Schools have been hurt and state funding for our universities has been reduced by 25%.  Support for the elderly and the disabled has fallen to where it was in 1983.  Our courts suffered debilitating reductions.

The stark truth is that without new tax revenues, we will have no other choice but to make deeper and more damaging cuts to schools, universities, public safety and our courts.

That is why I am filing today an initiative with the Attorney General’s office that would generate nearly $7 billion in dedicated funding to protect education and public safety. I am going directly to the voters because I don’t want to get bogged down in partisan gridlock as happened this year. The stakes are too high.

My proposal is straightforward and fair.  It proposes a temporary tax increase on the wealthy, a modest and temporary increase in the sales tax, and guarantees that the new revenues be spent only on education.  Here are the details:

• Millionaires and high-income earners will pay up to 2% higher income taxes for five years. No family making less than $500,000 a year will see their income taxes rise. In fact, fewer than 2% of California taxpayers will be affected by this increase.
• There will be a temporary ½ cent increase in the sales tax.  Even with this temporary increase, sales taxes will still be lower than what they were less than six months ago.
• This initiative dedicates funding only to education and public safety–not on other programs that we simply cannot afford.

This initiative will not solve all of our fiscal problems. But it will stop further cuts to education and public safety.

I ask you to join with me to get our state back on track.

Dear Members of our Campus Community,

Over the weekend I have received many expressions of concern from faculty, staff, and students about the importance of preserving academic freedom. I have very much appreciated these sentiments. I also have met with our colleagues in Student Affairs, the Police Department, and the Academic Senate.

I am writing now to reaffirm, on behalf of UC Santa Barbara, our campus commitment to civil discourse, freedom of expression, and non-violence. These are core values of our academic community, and we share a common responsibility to protect and safeguard them. Our students, faculty, and staff must continue to work together to discuss important issues and concerns in an environment of mutual respect, safety, and tolerance, even in difficult times.

Thank you for helping to ensure the values of our community.

I send my best wishes for the Thanksgiving holiday.

Sincerely,

I am proud of UC students who are speaking out with passion and conviction in support of public higher education across the state. I was moved last night by the sight of thousands of students who peacefully demonstrated in UC Berkeley’s Sproul Plaza, and by those who traveled to Sacramento to protest state disinvestment in our colleges and universities.

Free speech is in the DNA of the University of California, and public protest is an important part of our history. Free speech is often contentious, as is democracy. I want all of our students to know that I fully and unequivocally support their right to protest peacefully.

At UC Berkeley, a process is in place to review the violence of last week. Like Chancellor Birgeneau, I was distressed by what I saw, both as a parent and as president of the University of California. Whether there or elsewhere, I have absolute confidence that our chancellors will do what is right and necessary to ensure that the campuses where our students live and learn provide an environment for robust but peaceful discourse. The safety of our students must be protected, always.

In difficult times like these, it sometimes can be too easy to lose sight of the larger picture. UC students, faculty, staff and our regents all share a passion for the University and its role in shaping a better society. We also suffer together the strains caused by what has been a long pattern of state disinvestment in the University of California. And, as a result, we should stand together in common cause to do everything in our power to convince the state’s political leadership that higher education represents not a cost, but the most enlightened investment any state can make.

I also want to offer the heartfelt sympathy of the entire UC community to the family of Christopher Travis, the student who died of wounds suffered yesterday at the Haas Business School in a shooting incident unrelated to the Sproul Plaza activities. It is an absolutely tragic situation for all involved, for Mr. Travis, the students who were placed in jeopardy and the staff and police who quickly responded and took action.

Online Voter Registration (SB 397) Signed into Law!

Governor Brown also signed into law SB 397, a bill implementing online voter registration. Online voter registration was chosen as a top priority for UC students this year at the UCSA Congress. Earlier this month, UC students made hundreds of calls in support of SB 397 and all of your hard work paid off!
SB 397 will authorize the California DMV to work with the Secretary of State to roll out a secure online voter registration process in 2012. By streamlining the voter registration process, online voter registration will greatly increase youth and student participation in the voting process. UC students will continue our advocacy in the coming months to ensure that this online voter registration system is implemented in time for the 2012 elections.

Monday, August 22, 2011

“When the Students Lead, the Leaders Will Follow”

University of California Student Association Unanimously Endorses Prop 1481, THE OIL EXTRACTION FEE TO RESCUE EDUCATION INITIATIVE

At the 13th Annual UC Student Congress, August 18-21, at UC Riverside, Prop 1481, The Oil Extraction Fee to Fund Education was unanimously endorsed by the University of California Student Association “which is the single recognized voice for over 220,000 students enrolled in the University of California System” (see attached Resolution of Support from UCSA).  Cypress College Professor Peter Mathews, lead proponent and co-author of the Prop 1481, stated, “The UCSA endorsement is invaluable in our quest to qualify Prop 1481 for the California ballot and will make a major difference in our success in bringing the highest quality, equal opportunity, and fully affordable education to California students.  Prop 1481 places a 15% severance tax on oil extracted in California, bringing in $3 billion for education K-College and University, to significantly reduce college and university tuition fees, restore class sections that were cut, rehire laid off professors and teachers, and reduce class sizes and restore the full academic year K-12.  Our quest is nothing short of Civil Rights and Educational Justice for all !”

The key points of the Resolution are “that UCSA endorses the proposed Oil Extraction Fee to Rescue Higher Education Initiative; that the UCSA pledges to participate in the campaign for the initiative; that the UCSA strongly urges the University of California Office of the President to join us in the proper advocacy for public education in the State of California through the endorsement of this initiative; and that the UCSA Board of Directors charges the UCSA President to present this resolution to the following individuals: Governor Jerry Brown, the University of California Chancellors, University of California President Mark Yudof, the University of California Board of Regents, the authors of Proposition 1481, and major members of the California State Legislature.”     Submitted the 19th day of August 2011

THE GOVERNOR AND LEGISLATURE OFFICIALLY CUT $1.4 BILLION FROM HIGHER EDUCATION; THE FINAL BUDGET (JUNE 2011) INCLUDED ADDITIONAL $300 MILLION TOTAL CUTS TO UC AND CSU.  BECAUSE OF THE CURRENT DOWNWARD TREND IN THE U.S. AND CALIFORNIA ECONOMIES, THE STATE BUDGET FACES A MID-YEAR DEFICIT OF BILLIONS OF DOLLARS BEGINNING IN JANUARY 2012: $3 BILLION IN DELAYED PAYMENTS TO K-12 AND COMMUNITY COLLEGES; MORE SEVERE CUTS TO CSU AND UC EXPECTED:  7 DAYS SHORTENED K-12 SCHOOL YEAR, 80% INCREASE IN COLLEGE FEES WITHIN ONE YEAR (2010-2011), AND FURTHER TUITION FEE INCREASES FOR COMMUNITY COLLEGE STUDENTS ARE PROJECTED FOR JANUARY 2012.

Prop 1481 comes just in time to address some of the above major financial needs of California Education, Kindergarten through College and University.  504,760 valid signatures of California registered voters are needed to qualify Prop 1481 for a vote on the June 2012 statewide ballot.  Hundreds of volunteer activists statewide, from social justice, educational, student, teacher, professor, administrator and small business groups are currently circulating 154,000 Prop 1481 petitions (containing 770,000 signature slots) on college and university campuses, at grocery stores, farmers markets, shopping centers, and other places.   In the next two weeks, the Prop 1481 campaign will be distributing an additional 42,350 petitions containing 211,750 signature slots to be signed statewide.

Other student groups that have endorsed, or are supporting and/or distributing thousands of Prop 1481 petitions include the Student Senate for California Community Colleges (SSCCC), the California Community College Association of Student Trustees (CCCAST), and members of the California State Student Association (CSU).  (Please see attachments for full endorsement list and UCSA Endorsement Resolution)

For more information, please call Peter Mathews at (562) 234-3319 and go to our website at www.rescueeducationcalifornia.org.<http://www.rescueeducationcalifornia.org.>

For more information, contact Ellie Sciaky at gsavpexternal@gmail.com.