Thursday, February 5, 2009

More on the UC Regents

Education Chris Thompson — Thu, Feb 5, 2009 at 8:09 AM

Having adjusted their eligibility rules to maintain or increase student diversity while obeying the ban on affirmative action, the UC Regents are now scheduled to vote on UC President Mark Yudof's plan to offer free tuition to low-income students. The Blue and Gold Opportunity Plan would cover tuition for all students whose household income falls beneath $60,000 a year. According to the Daily Cal, the plan would only cost $3.1 million, because most of the tuition is already covered by Cal Grants. The plan was approved by a Regent committee yesterday; the full group of Regents will consider it today.

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UC Layoffs, Furloughs Budget Cuts: $ 3 Million Extravagant Spending by Yudof/Birgeneau for Consultants - Work Can Be Done Internally.
Save $3,000,000 for teaching students. Do the work internally with the resources of the UCB Academic Senate Leadership (C. Kutz/ F. Doyle), the world – class UCB faculty and staff, & UCB Chancellor’s stable of blotted staff (G. Breslauer, N. Brostrom, F. Yeary, P. Hoffman etc) & President Yudof.

President Yudof has a UCB Chancellor that should do the high paid work he is paid for instead of hiring an East Coast consulting firm to do the work of his job. ‘World class’ smart executives like Chancellor Birgeneau need to do the analysis, hard work and make the difficult tough decisions to identify inefficiencies!

Where do consulting firms like Bain ($3,000,000 consultants) get their recommendations?
From interviewing the senior management that hired them and will be approving their monthly consultant fees and expense reports. Remember the nationally known auditing firm who said the right things and submitted recommendations that senior management wanted to hear and fooled government oversight agencies and the public? Impartial consultants never bite the hands(Birgeneau/Yeary) that feed them.

Mr. Birgeneau's performance management work accountabilities include "inspiring innovation and leading change." This involves "defining outcomes, energizing others at all levels and ensuring continuing commitment." Instead of demonstrating his leadership by fulfill the senior management work of his job, Mr. Birgeneau outsourced them. Doesn't he engage University of California and University of California Berkeley (UCB) people at all levels to help examine the budget and recommend the necessary $150 million trims? Hasn't he talked to Cornell and the University of North Carolina - which also hired Bain -- about best practices and recommendations that might apply to UCB cuts?

No wonder the faculty, staff and Californians are angry and suspicious. Three million dollars is a high price for students and Californians to pay when a knowledgeable ‘world-class’ UCB Chancellor and his bloated staff are not doing the work of their job.

A reminder UC/UCB: California is in an economic recession! Save $3 million.