So if you don’t mind me asking, what are your goals in all this? I’m looking for people to help me in my quest to change the way our UC spends money and make it transparent. If you’re down for involvement or even just schooling me a bit I’d appreciate it. Could we chat or talk by phone sometime?

Send my best to the hunger strikers if you know them and keep up the good work!

Solidarity Forever
Edward Alexander Loseman

Not quite. The point I was trying to make was that the economic profession
doesn’t have the tools to estimate what this impact might be. We could
estimate the impact of funding changes for the whole country, (of
reductions in # of degrees, and/or less research), but not for one state.
I don’t think anyone could reliably estimate, if we stopped producing primary school teachers, or mechanical
engineering PhDs , or if UC spent less on chemistry research, what the economic effects
on the state would be.

This issue is “at what cost?” Has what the University has done to improve its bond rating had _other_ costs that are large enough to outweigh the savings?

That’s definitely worth investigating.

This metaphor is actually based off a Chinese Chengyu or idiom. Mangren mo Xiang—Blind men feel the elephant

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-student-funds4-2010apr04,0,1538601,print.story

It says in relevant part:

> In 2006, administrators launched a campaign to raise $100
> million from private contributors to pay for the $185-million
> upgrade, which includes cushier seats, a high-definition scoreboard
> and expanded locker rooms. But when the fundraising effort fell
> victim to the recession, administrators changed the finance plan to
> include $25 million from student fees.

The article also quotes Student Regent Jesse Bernal:

> “Students really weren’t involved in the process, beyond
> maybe some rubber-stamp committee,” said UCLA Student
> Regent Jesse Bernal. “I don’t think they know enough
> about it.”

I spent some time this morning looking for more info.

The July 14, 2009 Regent’s building and grounds committee minutes (not marked approved) show the initial plan:

http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/regents/minutes/2009/gb7.pdf

The full Regents visited it on July 16, 2009 and approved the committee recommendations (there was also a Memorial Stadium action there, so this was an interesting meeting)

http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/regents/minutes/2009/board7.pdf

They approved this language:

> Pauley Pavilion Renovation and Expansion – preliminary plans,
> working drawings, construction, and equipment – $185 million,
> to be funded from gift funds ($100 million), external
> financing ($60 million), Student Programs, Activities, and
> Resources Center (SPARC) fee ($15 million), and Student Seismic
> fee ($10 million).

Primary repayment was defined:

> The President be authorized to obtain external financing not to
> exceed $60 million to finance the Pauley Renovation and
> Expansion project listed. The President requires that:
>
> b. As long as the debt is outstanding, the UCLA basketball
> program net revenues shall be maintained in amounts sufficient
> to pay the debt service and to meet the related requirements of
> the authorized financing.

They also authorized borrowing to cover gifts not yet received:

> The President be authorized to obtain standby financing not to
> exceed $47 million and interim financing not to exceed $50 million
> prior to awarding a construction contract for any gift funds not
> received by that time and subject to the following conditions:
>
> b. Repayment of any debt shall be from gift funds. If gift funds
> are insufficient, and some or all of the debt remains outstanding,
> then the UCLA campus’ share of the Unrestricted Short-Term
> Investment Pool (STIP) shall be maintained in amounts sufficient
> to pay the debt service and to meet the related requirements of
> the authorized financing.

I’ve not found any indication that the Regents have revisited this since then, though that’s not entirely conclusive; there are several mechanisms they could have used to discuss it outside the minutes-taking part of the meeting.

Regent Bernal is recorded as present at the meeting. The minutes don’t record the yeah’s and nay’s, so it’s not clear who voted for and against, but it passed.

It will be interesting to see what UCLA says about this tomorrow, but I think the article is pretty misleading. It gives the impression that using student fees for the project is a recent decisions based on a shortfall, or at least in some sense ‘news’, but it’s not: Use of those fees is the original and only plan approved by the Regents. It may or may not be a good idea, but it’s hard to argue that it’s a surprise. The article’s argument that a shortfall in gifts below the planned $100M resulted in use of $25M in student fees is just wrong, because those two numbers were in the original plan _together_.

Bob

Some older coverage:

http://www.today.ucla.edu/portal/ut/_prv-q-a-on-budget-issues-111254.aspx

http://www.dailybruin.com/articles/2009/9/30/most-funding-pauley-pavilion-will-come-donations/

http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jan/01/sports/la-sp-ucla-pauley1-2010jan01

http://www.pac-10.org/sports/m-baskbl/spec-rel/021810aac.html

My intention with posting that was not to suggest anything about the Wikipedia page, but to spark discussion about it. I can understand how my questions might come off as leading, however. I’ll have to work on that.

For the projects on the Berkeley campus that received Regental approval since January 2000, I found no factual support for Meister’s thesis. It’s certainly possible that things are different on a different campus, or that I missed something. I’d certainly like somebody to point to the specifics if that’s the case. It’s possible that things will be different in the future. Reasonable people can differ about that prediction, and how much of scarce University resources should go into making sure that it doesn’t happen.

But, so far, there is no evidence that’s Meister is concered about something is _has_ happened, contrary to some of his language.

Bob