Continuing my unfortunate trend of reporting on the harsh economic climate we find ourselves in today, I find myself troubled by the lack of resolve over the State of California’s 2009 Fiscal Budget. We are in a state of flux right now, with no budget set and a deficit that is estimated to be at over $40 billion. The State is facing massive cuts, ranging across all departments.
Public school systems are being threatened with a dramatic decrease in funding, including higher education institutions such as the University of California and the California State University systems. But this financial crisis is already affecting students as well. The State of California has begun deferring payments to schools that participate in the CalGrant Scholarship program. The University of California President Mark Yudof has gone on record guaranteeing that the UC system will absorb the CalGrant Scholarship funds without immediate payment from the State to ease the burden on students, but no such guarantee can be made beyond the Spring Quarter.
This presents a real concern for students already struggling to pay increased tuition fees, and the news gets worse. With the expected decrease in State funding (an approximate loss of $10-12 million in funding for just the UC Irvine campus alone), tuition costs will likely rise another 10%, this coming after a roughly 8% increase for this school year.
The State needs to get its act together. Harsher spending policies need to be implemented and followed. For the most populous State in the nation, California needs reassert its position as a dominant financial and trade center. It needs to present a viable plan to resurface from the red to the black. And raising taxes another full percentage point or higher is not the solution. Given the harsh economic climate, making expenditures more costly by increasing the tax will have an adverse effect on the State’s economy, as it will decrease revenues and consequently, decrease tax income for the State.
We need to climb out of the whole that former Governor Gray Davis created some years ago. We need to once again operate with a surplus, money in the State’s bank. From the Controllers office to the Governors office to the retail and convenience stores that we all visit weekly, changes need to be made to instill confidence in the consumer.
Below is a video message from the University of California President Mark Yudof.
[photo by Wikimedia]
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