Office of Planning & Budgeting

October 7, 2010

CA to Vote on Budget that would Restore Some UC Funding

The California State Legislature is set  to vote on the budget for FY10-11 (current fiscal year) today; 99 days after the start of the fiscal year.  Based on negotiations among the gang of five (governor and majority and minority leaders from senate and assembly) the budget should pass.

The starting problem for California was a $17.9 billion shortfall, To ‘solve’ this problem the state did the following:

  • Expenditure Reductions  -$7.5
  • Use of one time Federal Funds  $5.3
  • Additional Revenues $2.5
  • Fund Shifts, Other Revenues  $2.8
  • Alternative Funding $0.5
  • Baseline Workload Adjustments -$0.2
  • Total Solutions $18.3
  • Final Reserve $0.4

The $18 billion deficit represents ~20 percent of the state’s $87.5 billion general fund, compared to an estimated 2011-2013 biennial shortfall in Washington State of $4.5 billion, ~14 percent of a $31 billion biennial budget (pre mid-year cuts in FY 11).

One area California chose not to reduce was its university systems.  The University of California received an increase of $370 million in new state funding – an increase of 14 percent over their FY10 state funding base of $2.6 billion.  The funding is broken out as follows:

  • $199m in permanent dollars as a start of restoring the base
  • $106m in temporary funds (with a stated goal of converting these to permanent funds)
  • $51m in permanent funds for new enrollment
  • $14m in permanent funds for health benefit cost increases

While one could argue that this California budget proposal is based on overly optimistic revenue projections, it is clear that they have made a loud statement on the importance of their public universities.