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Courtesy of UC Office
of the President
Dynes is eschewing a formal inauguration and will instead travel
throughout California, emphasizing UC’s validity and importance
to the state. |
first dialogue with faculty, staff
Dynes will fight deep budget cut
BY DAVID GREENWALD
UCLA Today Staff
In a series of teleconferences and online chats with faculty, staff,
alumni and students since taking office on Oct. 2, newly installed University
of California President Robert C. Dynes discussed a broad range of issues
facing the UC, chief among them the dire budget shortfall facing the state
and its impact on the university.
Having absorbed a $484-million cut since mid-year 2002-03, UC, along
with other state agencies, has been asked by the California Department
of Finance to submit plans assuming another 20% reduction in state funds.
That, said Dynes in a teleconference with UC editors on Oct. 3, the
day after he became UC’s 18th president, would be an appalling prospect.
“I am not willing to accept another 20% budget cut at this time,”
Dynes emphatically stated. “A 20% budget cut is a devastating cut
for the University of California. I can’t imagine reducing the budget
by that amount; it is equivalent to reducing two or three campuses, which
is unthinkable.”
He said he would make the case that investing to the fullest extent
possible in UC would pay dividends to the state many times over in years
to come. If additional budget reductions are necessary, Dynes said he
would look to streamlining and eliminating duplicative services from campus
to campus and reducing costs without compromising UC’s mission.
“I know many people in the university are doing more with less,”
Dynes said in an Oct. 14. Web chat with faculty and staff. “One
of the things that has contributed to [our] workload today is the decentralization
of the work that has occurred over time; in some cases, it’s my
view that we are doing things 10 or 11 times.” By sharing resources
and best practices, campuses may find ways to operate more efficiently,
he said.
On the possibility of an early-retirement incentive program to reduce
costs, Dynes said that that would have to be scrutinized closely before
even being considered.
“The volatility of the market in the last couple of years has
made that a real question, so we need to tread very carefully in this
area,” said the president, although he said he recognized the appeal
and value of the previous VERIPs. “The question is whether the pension
fund can afford it,” he said.
Addressing the issue of spiraling health- care costs, Dynes said that
while premiums nationwide “are headed for a train wreck,”
UC has done all it can to ease the burden on employees, especially by
subsidizing the cost for lower-paid employees. “That is the fairest
we can be under the enormous stress of rising health-care costs,”
he said. “We have tried to keep costs below those of other large
institutions throughout the state.”
As for his vision for the university over the next decade, Dynes said:
“I envision that each campus will have areas that are the best in
the world. We are a true system of 10 campuses, as opposed to a hierarchy,
and I would like to see each and every campus shine.
“The faculty and staff,” he said, “are the ones who
are going to make this happen.”
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