Diffusion of Responsibilities
The budget crisis in California is really hurting the Cal State and UC system. This semester, the Cal State system has been plagued with furloughs, increased student fees, and cuts in classes. The situation seems to be getting worse by the moment. Academic buildings are being rented out to storage companies and there are talk of shutting down the phone system completely. Already, the phones and lights are turn off two days out of the month.
A Los Angeles Times article questions whether the state is “saving money or shooting itself in the foot”. Cal State Northridge president, Jolene Koester, said that CSUN has 3,000 more low-income students than the Ivy Leagues combined. She refers to a study that said for every dollar the state invests in the Cal State system, $4.50 is returned from the salaries of the workforce.
Children from families that cannot afford private institutions or more expensive public universities turn to the Cal State system to get a college education. Because of the budget crisis, the state schools are turning away more and more applicants which means that children who cannot afford other schools will have no alternatives. Cal State Long Beach received 71,000 undergrad applicants and can only accept 9,000 which not only makes the acceptance rate for CSULB lower than most Ivy Leagues but leaves thousands of students without a college to attend. Who is to blame for this disaster?
Under the American government’s separation of powers, pinpointing to someone or something that is responsible is difficult. The state governor can blame a dysfunctional legislature which can then point to unstable revenue sources. It is not fair that the students must suffer from this crisis. How, then, can a budget crisis like this be avoided again?
posted by Differentblogger @ 11:50 PM
1 comments
1 Comments:
I'm a UC Davis alumni and it pains me to see the UC and Cal State systems in so much financial turmoil. The students are definitely paying the price for CA's financial crisis right now. While there is no easy answer to our state's problems, we can take small steps forward by holding our elected officials to their word when they promise fiscal responsibility. It's been said many times that CA doesn't have a revenue problem; it has a spending problem.
In an economy as crippled as the Golden State’s, taxes must not be the answer to our debt. I speak to business owners, CFO’s and executives every day as part of my job, and almost all of them have complaints about CA's hostile business environment. Companies are leaving at an alarming rate for other less expensive states like Nevada and Arizona. Keeping taxes and regulations high will only continue to discourage companies from staying here and, before too long, there will be no one left to tax. A better solution, in my opinion, is to focus on streamlining government spending and cutting out waste wherever possible. It’s everywhere. You don’t need to look far. In Los Angeles County, for example, the Board of Supervisors is currently examining their options for a program that has been costing the county more and more each year. Recently, they reissued an RFP for vendor services to operate the county’s GAIN case management services (a welfare-to-work program). I expect the same two companies will submit proposals as last year – incumbent Maximus Inc. and newcomer Policy Studies Inc. (PSI).
Maximus has maintained its contract with the county for many years now, but its cost to the taxpayers keeps skyrocketing. If the new bids resemble those from last year, we can expect that the Maximus bid will cost taxpayers almost a million dollars more than PSI’s.
What’s more, Maximus has a track record of poor performance. Under its latest three year contract, Maximus has been cited repeatedly for failing to meet required goals in 5 of 8 categories (according to the LA Times). Last year, the Department of Public Social Services favored PSI based on scoring done on the two companies by a neutral third party. PSI scored 9,082 out of 9,616 possible points in the procurement process, whereas Maximus scored 7,824 of 9,616. PSI won by a 13% margin on technical score and also submitted the lowest bid, which was 6% cheaper.
Even worse, Maximus has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to buy the support of the Board of Supervisors through lobbying and campaign donations.
We need to encourage our elected leaders – on all levels – to follow in the footsteps of the BOS and identify costly programs and find cheaper, more efficient alternatives. With a potential cost savings of over a million dollars a year, the savings would add up quickly if all counties made a similar effort. California’s priority must be maintaining its talented and diverse corporate base that makes it one of the world’s most powerful economies.
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