Bipartisan coalition urging vote on civil asset forfeiture bill

Good morning! Happy hump day.

Proponents of a measure to close a loophole that allows local law enforcement agencies to seize citizens’ property without a criminal conviction or even an arrest — a practice dubbed “policing for profit” — are moving behind the scenes to shore up support for the bill that died last September after a last-minute flurry of opposition from law enforcement.

The high-profile coalition of supporters — which spans the partisan divide with powerful advocacy groups and influential members of both parties — is aiming for a vote in the Assembly next week to block law enforcement from circumventing strict state law by partnering with the federal government in a program called “equitable sharing.”

On the right, Republican consultant Mike Madrid and Shawn Steel, a former chairman of the California Republican Party, are urging Republican support while California Democratic Party Chairman John Burton is working with Democrats. 

CalWatchdog has more.

In other news:

• Kevin Faulconer, the Republican mayor of San Diego, says he will not run for governor in 2018 if re-elected in November as mayor, reports the San Diego Union-Tribune. Faulconer was widely seen as Republicans’ best potential candidate for governor.
• The San Francisco Board of Supervisors approved a measure on Tuesday that amends its sanctuary city policy, giving local law enforcement greater discretion to notify immigration officials of an undocumented felon’s release from custody, according to SF Gate.
• “The Cal State Board of Trustees approved a plan Tuesday to raise faculty salaries by 10.5% over three years, capping a long-running dispute over pay that threatened to wreak havoc on the nation’s largest public university system,” writes the Los Angeles Times.
• “Assemblyman Ian Calderon, D-Whittier, has spent $41,500 in political funds to support Proposition 50, an anti-corruption measure put on the ballot in response to issues raised when his uncle, former Sen. Ronald Calderon, was indicted in a bribery case,” writes the Los Angeles Times.

Assembly:

• Full slate of hearings, including packed appropriations meeting.

Senate:

• Several joint hearings, including one on a ballot initiative to redirect bag fees away from grocers.

Gov. Brown:

• No public events scheduled.

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More than 90 percent of the 23,000 workers at 23 CSU campuses represented by the California Faculty Association campuses have voted in favor of striking unless they receive three years of annual pay raises of 5 percent, not the 2 percent annual raises offered by the state. A rally last week in Long Beach called by the CFA was attended by more than 1,000 people, Reuters reported. The wire service’s story illustrated a seemingly united CSU faculty:

“People are suffering and hurting financially,” said Theresa Montaño, a vice president of the California Teachers Association. “Faculty members can’t pay off their debt, raise a family or buy a home.”

 

During the march, many protesters said that if faculty members don’t get the salary increase, they are ready to walk off the job. …

 

Jennifer Eagan, a president for CFA, said it’s “unfair to ask professors keep sacrificing year after year without a significant pay increase.”

Faculty seek help from union-friendly state agency

The CFA further escalated its fight with the state government on Thursday by filing an unfair labor practices allegation with the state Public Employment Relations Board. This description is from the CFA’s website:

The charge is based on language in HEERA [the Higher Education Employer-Employee Relations Act] which requires that the CSU and CFA reach an agreement on salary before the university sends a budget request to the Legislature and governor.

 

In fact, in both 2015-16 and 2016-17 the CSU made Support Budget requests that included their plan to implement a 2 percent faculty salary increase for each year. By making a budget request prior to reaching agreement with CFA on what would be needed to offer an adequate salary pool and by arguing that they have “allocated $65.5 million for a 2 percent compensation pool for all employees,” and limiting discussion of salary to that predetermined pool, the CSU has “violated its duty to meet and confer with CFA in good faith.”

 

In his remarks to the Board of Trustees on Wednesday November 18 Kevin Wehr highlighted the problem. “What you fail to understand is that deciding what you think is fair compensation for your employees before the bargaining process even begins is not bargaining in good faith,” Wehr said. “Indeed Section 3572b HEERA of recognizes that fact and says that once we reach an agreement ‘an appropriate request for financing or budgetary funding for all state-funded employees … shall be forwarded … to the Legislature and the Governor.’ You have put the cart before the horse.”

PERB has consistently ruled in favor of local government unions challenging “bad faith” decisions by governments on changes in compensation. This time, however, the ultimate target isn’t the cities of San Jose or San Diego or the Los Angeles Unified School District — it’s Gov. Jerry Brown, who cleaned house at PERB in 2011 and removed leaders chosen by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who had fought with the California Nurses Association for years.

How much? More than the Gross Domestic Product of 100 countries, according to new data published by the State Controller’s office. In 2014, more than 650,000 state employees earned a total of $32 billion in wages and benefits.

As part of her ongoing effort to open up state government’s books, State Controller Betty Yee released the payroll figures in her latest update to the “Government Compensation in California” website. The open government portal provides self-reported payroll data for 240,736 positions in 150 state departments, 275,257 positions in 10 University of California institutions and the UC president’s office; 113,857 positions in 23 California State University institutions and the CSU chancellor’s office; and 20,316 positions in 58 Superior Courts.

The staggering amount of payroll data is matched by generous salaries and benefits provided to the top echelon of employees. Nine hundred sixty-nine state employees earned more than the President of the United States – with thousands more earning more than a quarter million dollars per year.

Highest Average Salaries: Institute for Regenerative Medicine, legislative staff

Topping the list of state agencies with the highest average salary is California’s stem cell agency. The average salary for employees of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) is $117,627 per year. That’s 21 percent more than the salaries of state lawmakers, who earn $97,197 per year.

Despite having the highest average salary for any state agency, the stem cell agency boasts that it is “a good steward of the people’s money.”

“CIRM is a good steward of the people’s money – independent reviewers agree that we are lean, well-managed and effective,” the agency claims on its website. “We are delivering economic results for Californians – both at the state level, and in dozens of communities in every part of the state.”

After the state’s stem cell agency, the only other state agencies with average salaries in six-figures are employees of the State Supreme Court, Sierra County Superior Court and California Court of Appeals, according to the State Controller’s database.

Lowest paid employees: Conservation agency, commissions on disability and women

Progressive Democrats have near universal control over state government, but you wouldn’t know it from the average pay of some state agencies.

The lowest paid average workers represented agencies focused on the environment, women and people with disabilities. According to the state’s 2014 payroll data, the average salary for the 11 state employees at the California Commission on Disability Access was just $15,213 per year, slightly more than the $14,494 average salary paid to the four employees at the Commission on the Status of Women.

The small number of employees arguably skews the data. However, that’s not a factor for the 3,500 employees of the California Conservation Corps, who earned an average wage of just $12,973 per year. Easily one of the most efficient state agencies, the department responsible for “protecting and restoring California’s environment and responding to disasters” paid out less than $2,000 per year in average retirement and health care costs per employee.

UC, CalPERS top list of highest paid employees

In contrast to workers at the California Conservation Corps, coaches at state universities earned big bucks. Last year, the Top 10 state employees all earned more than $1.6 million each. This millionaires club was dominated by coaches at the UC campuses.

As the Los Angeles Times noted last month, “UCLA head football coach Jim Mora earned $3.5 million in 2014, followed by basketball head coach Steve Alford at $2.7 million. Khalil Tabsh, an obstetrician at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, earned $2.3 million and Ronald Busuttil, a transplant surgeon at the Westwood campus, earned $2.2 million.” In all, 28 UC employees earned more than $1 million in total compensation.

Excluding employees of the UC system, the highest salaries were paid out to investment officers with the state’s retirement systems. CalPERS’ chief investment officer took home nearly $740,000 in 2015 — 40 times more than an employee earning the state’s $9 per hour minimum wage. To put the compensation for CalPERS’ highest-paid employee into perspective, it would take just 10 days to match the annual salary for the state’s in-home support service workers, who provide care and support for the elderly and people with disabilities.

The Top 10 highest-paid state employees, excluding the University of California system, are:

1. Chief Investment Officer of California Public Employees’ Retirement System: $739,594
2. Senior Investment Officer, California Public Employees’ Retirement System: $651,444
3. Senior Investment Officer, California Public Employees’ Retirement System: $650,694
4. Dentist, Department of Developmental Services: $628,218
5. Chief Physician and Surgeon, Department of Corrections & Rehabilitation: $563,572
6. Chief Investment Officer, California State Teachers’ Retirement System: $562,528
7. Physician and Surgeon, Department of Corrections & Rehabilitation: $559,297
8. President and CEO, State Compensation Insurance Fund: $549,254
9. Chief Executive Officer, State Teachers’ Retirement System: $534,613
10. Senior Investment Officer, Public Employees’ Retirement System: $522,556

California’s state payroll data has been viewed more than 8 million times since disclosure began in 2010. The controller’s office will provide more updates later this year, which will include more state and local agencies.

In 2010, the California State University system issued $352 million in revenue bonds. Earlier this month, it issued $1.1 billion of the same thing. The debt issuance is standard, generally considered to be part of the process to keep pace with growth. And financial disclosures are rich with information; people can go to prison for lying on these things.

Comparing the two issuances is a tour of the massive growth of the education industrial complex, a waltz through the luxury world of public, higher education.

Sky-rocketing revenues

According to the bond filings, gross revenues in the system more than doubled in the last 10 years, from $608.7 million in 2005 to $1.57 billion in 2014. The increases were generated across the board, in fees from parking to health facilities to the student union, and from continuing education to housing.

The revenue has started flowing from places other than tuition, which has remained the same since 2011 after increasing 60 percent for full-time undergrad students between 2005 and 2009 to $4,026.

Those increases incensed students, and protests forced bureaucrats to pay attention. Proposition 30, passed by voters in 2012, increased personal income tax on people making over $250,000 to fund education as well. That increase is scheduled to end in 2019.

In the meantime, though, schools have figured out other ways into the wallets of students, thus the increased fees.

Cost of an education

A student in 2010 paid $6,427 to live on-campus, support the student union and use the health facility. The same package today costs $7,958, or 23 percent more.

Students are trying to adjust. Some are living off-campus, which has become a cheaper alternative to the dorm.

Fees aren’t the only way the system has made money. While state funding has waxed and waned, the system increased private fundraising and government grant proceeds, from $1.2 billion in 2005 to $2.1 billion in 2014. The system notes that “amounts shown are not included as part of the gross revenues and generally are restricted to specified uses.”

Growth in the number of staff has sharply outpaced increases in the number of students they serve, with growth among administrators and faculty roughly triple that of students.

Between 2010 and 2015 the number of administrators and faculty grew from 47,000 to 57,000  – or 21 percent – while rank-and-file employees increased from 47,000 to 60,000, or 27 percent. Student enrollment increased from 433,000 to 466,000, or 7 percent.

In the last decade, the system saw two years of year-over-year declines in the number of full-time equivalent students.

Accepted students aren’t dropping everything and enrolling today; in 2010, 36 percent of those accepted enrolled; in 2014 that figure dropped to 27 percent.

With the continued flow of revenue, the system’s financial obligations have jumped 22 percent to over $5 billion from $4.1 billion in 2010.

And the budget? A 26 percent increase to a $8.7 billion budget from $6.9 billion in 2010.

Lottery revenue

The system also receives state lottery revenue: $42 million in 2014, up to $49 million this year. Cal State trustees have allocated part of that to the so-called Early Start program at the state Department of Developmental Services.

A portion of the lottery proceeds also goes toward the retirement fund for system employees. The system combined lottery and other funds to send $493 million to the pension system in 2014, up from $400 million in 2010.

And just last month, a new round of raises for executives was announced.

Now we are seeing a concrete reminder of the importance of the state laws established by these props: the constant stream of stories about the ever-bigger fees that California State University campuses mandate that students must pay on top of tuition and textbooks. Why do they keep going up? Because it’s an easy way to backfill budgets and make them balance instead of making tough decisions to keep spending in check.

Let’s look at fees demanded by San Jose State University, one of the larger CSU campuses:

By Katy Grimes

SACRAMENTO — Public contracts should always be subjected to stiff scrutiny. Without public scrutiny and oversight, spending other people’s money is too easy.

But a new Assembly bill would not only increase the amount of money California’s public universities and colleges could spend without adhering to the competitive bid process, but would also exempt state employees from felony charges of corruption.

AB 173 by Assemblywoman Shirley Weber, D-San Diego, was introduced in January. The bill had its first policy committee hearing in February. In April, after making it out of the policy committee, Weber amended AB 173, making major policy changes, including the corruption exemption.

AB 173 is scheduled for the Appropriations committee next, which is a fiscal committee.  The problem is that, with major policy changes, the bill should be scrutinized again in a policy committee.

Will members of the Assembly still vote to pass this bill without proper vetting?

What was changed?

The bill started out merely upping the amount of money university employees could spend without using the competitive bid process. But the amendment exempting state college and university employees from corruption prosecution is truly disturbing.

The bill was amended to read:

California public contract code 10522: “Any officer or employee of the University of California who corruptly performs any official act under this chapter to the injury of the university is guilty of a felony.”

Section 10523: “Any person contracting with the University of California by oral or written contract who corruptly permits the violation of any contract made under this chapter is guilty of a felony.”

Section 10524: “Persons convicted under Section 10522 or 10523 are also liable to the University of California for double the amount the university may have lost or be liable to lose by reason of the acts made crimes by this article.”

Section 10525: “Willful violation of any other provision of this chapter shall constitute a misdemeanor.”

Bill analysis

The only bill analysis was done April 24. Weber’s amendment is dated May 9, so the earlier analysis does not include the changes. The bill is scheduled to be in the Assembly Appropriations Committee May 15.

The analysis says, “Specifically, this bill:

“1) Allows the University of California to award contracts for the acquisition of goods, services, or information technology that have an estimated value of between $100,000 and less than $250,000 to a certified small business or a Disabled Veteran Business Enterprises if UC obtains price quotations from two or more certified small businesses or two or more DVBEs.

“a) This shall only apply to UC if the Regents of the University of California make the provision applicable by appropriate resolution.

“2) Allows the California State University to award contracts for the acquisition of goods, services, or information technology that have an estimated value greater than $5,000 and less than $250,000 to a certified small business or a DVBE if CSU obtains price quotations from two or more certified small businesses or two or more DVBEs.

“3) Allows the California Community Colleges to award contracts for the acquisition of goods, services, or information technology that have an estimated value greater than $5,000 and less than $250,000 to a certified small business or a DVBE if CCC obtains price quotations from two or more certified small businesses or two or more DVBEs.”

AB 173 passed the Assembly Accountability and Administrative Review Committee 12-0, but that was before it was amended.

Those who voted to pass AB 173: Assembly members K.H. “Katcho” Achadjian, Joan Buchanan, Ken Cooley, Jim Frazier, Jeff Gorell, Curt Hagman, Ian Charles Calderon, Bonnie Lowenthal, Jose Medina, Kristin Olsen, Sharon Quirk-Silva and Rudy Salas.

Would these same lawmakers vote to pass AB 173 again, knowing it has had such a dramatic policy change?

By Chris Reed

Will 2013 be the year that unionized faculty members at UC, CSU and the state’s community colleges finally figure out the threat that online education poses to their futures? If it is not this year, it is coming sometime soon. The same dynamics that have killed Borders, Tower Records and travel agencies, made newspapers far less lucrative and shaken up dozens of industries — easy, free/cheap online access to content and information — threaten bricks-and-mortar higher education.

“Look at the music industry. It’s been completely overturned by the Internet. My vision of the world is that everywhere will be like the music industry, but we’ve only seen it in a few places so far. Journalism is in the midst of the battle. And higher education is probably next,” is how George Mason University economist Tyler Cowen, an online education visionary, puts it.

Yes, K-12 is likely to live on in its present form because of the role schools play in the socialization process. Yes, Ivy League universities will continue to serve in their role as de facto gatekeepers for entry into Wall Street and high finance. But in Silicon Valley, the value that is placed on traditional credentials in most of the U.S. isn’t nearly as consistently strong. It is understood that learning can happen lots of ways, and hardly just in a formal classroom. Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg? All college dropouts. This is not lost on the rest of California’s elites.

Jerry Brown on the bandwagon

Now more and more online education is free, and the power of education apps on iPads and other devices is becoming more obvious, and people have realized how much great educational content there is on YouTube. At the very least, we seem sure to move toward a model in which online learning is a big part of traditional education because of its efficiency and low cost.

And guess who agrees this is a great idea?

“Quoting poet Robert Frost on the benefits of innovative thinking, Gov. Jerry Brown said Tuesday that three unusual math classes offered this spring at San Jose State University hold out hope for resolving one of California’s most troublesome problems: overcrowded classes.

“‘Online is part of the solution,’ Brown told a roomful of educators at San Jose State before quoting from a 1939 essay in which Frost said, ‘Originality and initiative are what I ask for my country.’

“Although online courses have been part of college curricula for years, the three new ones – at $150 each — suggest a new and possibly cheaper direction for students, California State University and Silicon Valley.”

But when will unions figure out that convenient and inexpensive inevitably eventually means fewer well-paying jobs? When will unions figure out that the U.S. student-loan debacle also feeds the crisis atmosphere around the old bricks-and-mortar norm?

For reasons I can’t comprehend, none of this has sunk in. The UC faculty associations, the CSU faculty union and the California Community Colleges faculty union don’t seem to grasp that if good and improving higher education is free or dirt-cheap online, if a conventional degree loses its gatekeeper status in many jobs, and if huge student loan defaults keep making headlines, the status quo could wither quickly.

Cowen and many other educators, economists, philanthropists and futurists have been writing about online education for years, especially its disruptive possibilities. By contrast, read the coverage of Jerry Brown’s push to have San Jose State and Udacity team up in offering online courses on the CSU faculty union website. It suggests that this could somehow be a good thing for faculty:

“CFA President Lil Taiz agrees on the importance of asking questions about student success:

“She said, ‘It’s good the CSU is actually testing out these methods and starting on a small scale. We must find out which online tools work well (or not), for what kinds of students, and for what kinds of subject matter. There is a lot to unpack in the pedagogy.’

“CFA and CSU managers have met on how the terms of work in the first semester of the pilot accord with the faculty contract.

“’You can’t have quality learning conditions for students—online or in a classroom—without professional working conditions for the faculty. Our contract is an important piece of making sure we have fairness, equity, and quality in all aspects of CSU teaching.’”

Clueless and oblivious in the faculty lounge

Wow. The lessons of recent history don’t appear to have sunk in at all with UC, CSU and CCC faculty if profs think online education’s arrival and increasing acceptance bodes well for them.

When Jerry Brown talks about the need for UC, CSU and CCC to be more efficient, he may not be talking only about pushing students to graduate in as little time as possible and not dawdle on campus. He may actually want them to become more efficient in the way other information businesses have become efficient — by taking full advantage of technology.

When will we see this trigger the modern equivalent of a Luddite reaction?

Soon, I suspect. When the liberal governor of California’s enthusiasm for online learning sinks in, the Lil Taizes of the Golden State will have no choice but to think about its long-term implications.

By Chris Reed

Everywhere one looks in California, school districts are openly using government resources to lobby for Prop. 30, and supporters of the tax-hike measure don’t care if it is against the law. Situational ethics on this issue are the norm in California and they have been for decades. No Democrat wants to get on the wrong side of the CTA. That’s why it’s nice to see bipartisan anger over a childish parting potshot at state lawmakers by a departing government executive: