The Regents meet this week. There are several items of interest on the agenda.
1) President Napolitano has stated several times that she will announce some big plans. The only likely slot I see for that is between 8:30 and 9:30 am on Wednesday. You probably noticed that she already committed $15 million in non-state funds to the president's postdoc program, grad student recruitment, and undocumented UC students ($5 M for each).
2) A number of capital projects and their financing are on the agenda for the Committee on Grounds and Buildings at 3pm on Tuesday.
State capital projects for the next two years are covered here:
The Capital Financial Plan 2013-2023 has detailed info on plans for each campus. You may find projects that you had no idea your campus was contemplating.
3) Educational policy at 9:30 on Wednesday: there will be a discussion of doctoral education and especially grad student support. The agenda item lays out the problem, but I do not see any definite suggestions other than to meet and discuss the problems some more.
4) Educational policy also has a discussion of annual report on private support. The report itself has a lot of very detailed and sometimes interesting data. E.g. "alumni individuals" gave less than "other individuals." In many categories, the numbers vary sharply by campus. For example faculty giving varies from $17,910 to $4,137,986. At only one campus is it a noticeable slice of the pie, and that is not the campus where it is the largest in absolute terms.
5) The Committee on Finance meeting at 8:50 on Thursday is dense with significant items. Much of this is seriously wonky stuff and is far more than anyone can digest in one lifetime. However, if you ever need numbers, these are good
places to look.
The budget plan for 2014-15 is here (with attachments here). This calls for increases in revenue and expenditures of $383.1 million. It's easy to spend it. It's less clear where it will come from, with the only reasonably certain source being $142.2 million more from the state. The University will request an additional $125 million from the state. There is also a "budgeted" increase of $26 million in Non-Resident Tuition (NRT). The proposal for filling the remaining $90 million gap
comes from projected improvements in investment strategies, procurement contracts, and philanthropic giving. Almost all of the new money will go to increases in salary and benefit costs including a proposed 3% salary increase for all. $50 M is for improvements in academic quality.
6) The annual financial report is here. The hugely detailed report is here. UC debt has increased to about $15.8 billion, up by about 50% since 2009.
7) UC Retirement System's annual report
8) UCRP report (for the pension system) is here, with attachments here. The UCRP funded ratio is still falling and is now 76%.
8) Actuarial valuation of the retiree health program is here (with attachments here)
Whew. I'm exhausted just listing all this.
I am surprised to learn that UCRP's funded ratio is still falling. UC has been ramping up contributions for a few years now, and the stock market has been doing quite well. So either liabilities are growing a lot faster than anticipated (unlikely) or the millions UC spends in brokerage fees are really wasted.
ReplyDeleteFunding ratio is only falling on an actuarial (smoothed) basis. It improved on a cash basis. Though it is only next year that contributions will be above the full normal cost, so the improvement can't yet be credited to ramped up contributions.
ReplyDelete