Revised state budget includes $90 million cut for UC
Governor, Legislature remain committed to CITRIS, summer school funding; propose smaller salary increases

07 June 2001 | A revised budget picture for the state next year, necessitated by decreased revenues and the escalating energy crisis, provides mixed news for Berkeley and other UC campuses.

Gov. Gray Davis announced changes to his budget plan May 14. The Senate adopted Davis’ revised budget as is, while the Assembly took out some capital project funds for other UC campuses and subtracted $18 million in funding for Internet 2 at UC campuses.

A joint budget committee is working out details for a final vote by both houses and could make further revisions during its negotiations, said Laura Capps, Berkeley’s director of government relations. A final vote on the budget will come later this month.

“This budget recognizes that, when windfalls are replaced by shortfalls, government must do more with less,” Gov. Davis said in making his revisions. “In order to balance this budget, we reduced spending, stretched every dollar further and protected our highest priorities.”

Still included in Davis’ budget for the UC system are initial state matching funds for the proposed Berkeley-led Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society. Also preserved are permanent funds to increase summer school enrollment at Berkeley and other UC campuses.

But the proposed budget revisions include less money than expected for employee salary increases.

“The budget is not welcome news,” UC President Richard Atkinson told the Board of Regents at its May meeting.

About $90 million was cut from Davis’ original funding proposal for UC; it includes significant reductions in what was expected for salary increases. “It will not allow us to give more than 2 percent, including merit increases,” said Atkinson.

Davis’ original proposal had called for a 4 percent increase for eligible employees.

The governor’s revised budget calls for providing CITRIS with $33 million, the first of three payments in state matching funds. If approved by the Legislature, CITRIS would become the fourth California Institute for Science and Innovation. Three other institutes were funded in December at various UC campuses. Among those was QB3 — the California Institute for Bioengineering, Biotechnology and Quantitative Biomedicine, a joint projects of Berkeley, UC San Francisco, and UC Santa Cruz. Davis’ revised budget includes continued funding for those institutes.

CITRIS, to be based largely at Berkeley — with UC Davis, UC Santa Cruz and UC Merced as partners — will bring the power of information technology to bear on such societal needs as energy conservation, transportation, education, emergency preparedness and health care. The center will be a model partnership between state and industry to address these issues.

To help UC campuses accommodate expected enrollment growth, the governor is providing $20.7 million for state-supported summer instruction at the Berkeley, Los Angeles and Santa Barbara campuses. This is the second year of funding to phase in state-supported summer instruction. Traditionally, summer instruction has been self-supported. The proposed funding would be used to offer courses and financial aid that are equivalent to what is offered in the regular year.

A major addition to the budget proposal is a $100 million augmentation to cover increased natural gas costs for the UC system.

State statutes require final action on the budget by June 15.
See www.berkeley.edu/berkeleyan for continued updates on the state budget.