Analysis: Recent California newspaper editorials

May 14

San Jose Mercury News: "Simitian-Evans plan to keep state parks open deserves support"

When then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger first proposed shutting dozens of state parks to help close the deficit in 2008, it was a terrible idea, and he eventually dropped it. State parks are a remarkable legacy for California's children. Tens of millions of people visit every year, and all 278 have value.

In fact, the savings in Schwarzenegger's plan were a sham: The costs of closed parks lost tourism, vandalism, fires would have outweighed any potential savings.

When Gov. Jerry Brown last year proposed closing 70 parks by July 1, it was an equally terrible idea. It still is, even in light of the deepening deficit in California's budget. The governor's May revision released Monday shows a shortfall of nearly $16 billion, with additional devastating cuts to education, health care and other crucial services. But accepting the destruction of some of California's greatest long-range assets is not the answer.

Fortunately, at least some lawmakers agree. Sens. Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto, and Noreen Evans, D-Santa Rosa, announced a plan last week that patches together funds from three sources to close a short-term gap of about $22 million and lays out a path to sustainability over the long term. Democratic legislative leaders support it. If Brown wants to save state parks and not just use them as a cudgel to get voters to approve new taxes, he should, too.

Simitian and Evans represent districts that rely heavily on tourism from these parks, so they understand that closing them will actually cost the state money. They have proposed a raft of ideas to generate funds, including authorizing a specialty license plate and an opt-in vehicle license fee check off. They would provide liability coverage for nonprofits that step up to keep parks open, and allow flexibility in staffing, so that highly skilled and paid rangers aren't, say, collecting entrance fees.

But it will take a few years for these ideas to close the budget gap. Until then, parks will need more state money. The Simitian-Evans plan provides the funds relatively painlessly.

They propose redirecting $10 million from the gas tax fund, which, believe it or not, has a $500 million surplus that must be used for roads, including law enforcement on them; it could help pay for rangers on patrol. They would also take $10 million a year in long-term loans for five years from a federal clean-water program to fund the enormous backlog in infrastructure projects. And they would divert up to $21 million a year allocated for building off-road vehicle parks.

Others are clamoring for the money, but it's not as if these ideas would swipe funds from schools.

Closing some parks would destroy rural communities and reduce state tax revenue. And the state would spend more dealing with crime, vandalism and fires on these unpatrolled lands than the $22 million it supposedly would gain shutting them down.

Much of what has made California a great state is crumbling. But its natural beauty endures, and continues to draw residents and help businesses attract workers. State parks are what keep that beauty accessible to all Californians, not just those who can afford a house on the coast or in the mountains.

State parks are among California's crown jewels, and we can salvage them. Brown should jump at the chance.

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May 14

Santa Rosa Press Democrat: "May reality: Voters need to raise taxes"

"I can't redesign reality," Gov. Jerry Brown said Monday as he issued his gloomy May budget revision.

Not that the Legislature and governor haven't tried before.

One can even accuse Brown and the Democrat-led Legislature of attempting a reality make-over last year when they approved a budget that was tied to some overly rosy revenue projections. To the surprise of few, those projections were way off, triggering some late-year cuts that were painful for school districts, colleges and other state entities.

This year, May once again is proving to be the cruelest month for California.

Brown broke the bad news Saturday that despite some signs of an improving economy, the improvements are not showing up in state revenues. Due primarily to a drop in personal income tax, the state's budget deficit has grown from $9.2 million to a projected $15.7 billion.

That essentially leaves the state with two options, which Brown laid out on Monday.

Under one, the Legislature will cut the budget by some $8.3 billion while voters approve temporary increases in sales and income taxes in the fall which would bring in an additional $6.6 billion a year.

Under option B, voters would reject the tax measures, forcing the Legislature to make deeper cuts into an education system already ravaged by previous rounds of reductions.

Brown pleaded with voters to go with option A.

"What will change if we don't get the taxes (approved) is schools will suffer ... It won't be pretty," said Brown. "I have bumped up the revenue on condition that the people say yes."

If they say no, it will mean a new round of trigger cuts. "And it will be felt at UC (campuses), it will be felt at the Cal State campuses, and it will be felt in every school district in the state," he said.

It's a sad day when the best option available for the state calls for $8.3 billion in spending cuts. Brown's plan includes a 5 percent cut in pay for state employees most likely through a reduction in work hours spending cuts on programs for seniors and the poor and additional funding reductions for health care programs.

But California has little choice but to go with this plan, because option B is unthinkable.

Given that 40 percent of the state budget is in education funding, the state has nowhere else to go to balance the budget but to do it on the backs of children.

As Brown noted Monday, the state has already made deep cuts. If it weren't for the reductions already made, the budget shortfall would be nearly double what it is now.

The biggest unknown at this point is whether voters will be willing to go along with the governor's tax measures in the fall. They should.

We've said from the outset of this economic downturn that the state Legislature and governor's office needed to bridge California's structural deficit through a combination of cuts and tax increases and it needed to start with the cuts.

They have, and they're planning more. It's now the public's turn to help by temporarily increasing sales and some income taxes to get the state back on firm financial footing.

California needs voters to approve tax increases. Thinking that some other solution exists to fill a $16 billion hole in a $97 billion budget is, well, redesigning reality.

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May 13

The Sacramento Bee: "Desperate times at UC trigger some desperate brainstorming"

Given vast fluctuations and declines in revenue from the state, University of California chancellors are getting desperate and creative.

Today, state funding is 11 percent of the $22.5 billion operating budget for the 10 UC campuses. The rest comes from the federal government, student tuition and private philanthropy.

If the state doesn't reverse this decline in state support, no one should be surprised if thinkers in the UC system look to alternative models.

The old model, based on most funds coming from the state, is broken.

The latest idea comes out of UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau's examination of land-grant institutions in other states.

As with previous proposals he has floated, Birgeneau wants individual UC campuses to be able to gain more control over tuition to respond to changes in state funding. But casting each campus on its own would be a giant step away from California's one multi-campus university. It would increase competition between the campuses and exacerbate turf battles at a time when UC needs greater coordination, not less.

Birgeneau looked at a full spectrum of land-grant universities.

At one end is Cornell University, a private land-grant university, where the state contracts with the university to provide certain services.

Next is the University of Delaware, a privately chartered and governed, state-assisted nonprofit. State support is 10 percent of the budget.

Then there's the University of Vermont, a "legislatively mandated amalgamation of a private institution" - a private university that merged with the state's land-grant agricultural college, which is run by public trustees. Less than 7 percent of revenue comes from the state. Seventy percent of students come from out of state.

Do we really want UC to go in the private or semi-private direction? No.

Birgeneau also looked at the University of Virginia, where the state has restructured the system around a "chartered universities" proposal where each campus would be able to set its own tuition, and hold and invest all of its own revenue. The state provides only 8 percent of the University of Virginia's budget. This is very much a work in progress, which Birgeneau writes, is "of considerable interest."

The State University System of Florida, he notes, has individual campus boards that can set tuition for graduate/professional programs and out-of-state students (but not for in-state undergraduates).

For UC, Birgeneau is proposing that each of the 10 campuses has its own board that could:

. Set tuition for graduate/professional school students and out-of-state students.

. Set tuition for in-state undergraduates within a range determined by the UC Board of Regents - for example, within $12,000 to $15,000.

. Decide how many out-of-state students to enroll.

. Approve salaries above the regents' limits (currently $291,000).

. Set financial aid amounts.

. Control investments.

This would be the end of the UC system as Californians have known it.

It would mean vastly different fees for students on the different UC campuses, an emphasis on enrolling higher-paying graduate/professional and out-of-state students and a new escalation in salaries.

Gov. Jerry Brown and lawmakers should see this for what it is - an expression of frustration with the state's declining commitment to higher education.

Birgeneau's proposal also is a warning: Expect to see more proposals like this one if things don't change.

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May 15

The Press-Enterprise: "Train debacle"

California has a ready answer for federal pressure to push ahead on bullet train plans: No. Legislators do not need more study to make a decision: The project's flaws are compelling and its risks are clear. Legislators should stop this train before it becomes a high-speed boondoggle.

U.S Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood stopped by Sacramento last week, warning California not to delay a vote on the state's proposed bullet train. LaHood said the Legislature needed to place money for the initial construction of the train in the next budget, not wait for more hearings before deciding whether to fund the project. LaHood's message was that the administration wanted a concrete commitment from the state, though whether the federal government would or could rescind the $3.3 billion in federal grants slated for the train is not clear.

The California High-Speed Rail Authority envisions a system that would eventually whisk passengers between Los Angeles and San Francisco at speeds of up to 220 mph. Gov. Jerry Brown wants the Legislature to authorize $2.6 billion in bond funds for the project. That money, along with the federal funds, would be enough to start building the first stretch of track between Bakersfield and Merced. High-speed travel would start once the line connected to the San Fernando Valley, scheduled for 2021.

But legislators' hesitation about pushing ahead is well-founded. The train's financial plans are built on wishful thinking. Nor would the project serve any pressing transportation need, making it a poor public investment even if the funding were to magically appear.

The state's legislative analyst, for example, calls the project's funding "highly speculative," even after the rail agency trimmed the projected cost of the complete system by $30 billion, to $68.4 billion. The rail authority needs another $20 billion in federal funding just to start high-speed operations. Altogether, the project is about $55 billion short of the money needed to finish the line. Nor do those numbers include the numerous questions about ridership and operating costs crucial to whether the train could ever be self-supporting.

LaHood's demand for action, of course, came without any commitment to provide the additional $39 billion in federal money the rail financing plan counts on. Nor is any such pledge likely to happen. The federal government is running $1 trillion-plus annual deficits, and faces huge long-term financial challenges. The nation does not have the money and Congress shows little interest in providing more funds, anyway.

California could use federal help in addressing transportation issues such as urban/suburban traffic congestion and cargo traffic from international trade. But faster rail travel between Northern and Southern California is not on any list of top state priorities.

Federal pressure does not make a faulty project acceptable. Legislators should halt the train plans. Yes, the state might then forego a few billion dollars in federal grants, but that loss would be a small price to pay for avoiding a much more expensive debacle later.

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May 15

The Los Angeles Times: "No procrastinator left behind"

Now that most states have received or applied for relief from the No Child Left Behind Act, California is submitting its own proposal. And in true California fashion, it's different.

The state has long been at odds with the U.S. Education Department over the waiver process. Both sides agree that the federal law is flawed to the point of being counterproductive. But California won't agree to do what other states have promised to get out from under the law's most punitive measures: include standardized test scores as a significant component in the performance evaluations of individual teachers.

On this point, California has it right. The Obama administration has been trying to dictate its favorite, though unproven, school reforms to states by using No Child Left Behind as a stick and waivers as a carrot. Instead, it should be letting states design their own improvement plans, as long as they are substantial and specific, and then judging them by the results.

The administration's push to use tests in teacher evaluations is fairly arbitrary. U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan could have chosen instead to require states to soften teacher tenure laws or offer more arts classes or picked from a host of other possible changes. We believe that test scores should play some role in judging teachers' effectiveness, but there's a dearth of evidence that this is one of the most important reforms needed in schools right now.

Yet it's hard to get behind the state's letter requesting a waiver, largely because there isn't much substance in it to get behind. The letter is thin on specific goals for improvement, and its main plan consists of a promise to make real plans at some point in the future.

No Child Left Behind is a mess of a law, but its intent was noble: to lay bare, publicly, the shockingly low academic performance of disadvantaged and minority students, and to hold schools to specific standards of improvement and punish them if they failed to meet those standards.

True, California's Academic Performance Index is a much saner way to judge schools' progress than is the federal government's, and the state's academic standards are relatively high as well. But the API needs to be strengthened it doesn't measure anything beyond standardized test results and does too little to ensure that the achievement gap among demographic groups is narrowed over time.

Last fall, Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed legislation that would have added worthwhile new factors to the API so that it would take into account dropout and college-preparation rates and the extent to which schools offered an enriched curriculum. The governor said he had in mind a more qualitative measurement of a school's mettle. That was seven months ago. The state and its schoolchildren are waiting.

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May 15

The Orange County Register: "California universities less appealing"

California keeps breaking. Example: Kids in the state aren't choosing California universities as much as in the past. According to a survey released last week by the Public Policy Institute of California, "Enrollment rates at UC and CSU have fallen by one-fifth over the past five years, from about 22 percent of all high school graduates to below 18 percent."

Among the state's "most highly prepared high school graduates," the drop is even sharper, from about 67 percent to 55 percent.

Many kids are choosing community colleges instead, increasing the burdens on that already-crowded system. However, many of these young students the best and the brightest choose to not "attend college anywhere."

Many others are going to school in other states. This is ominous because students often first look for work near where they go to school.

PPIC pointed out that a major culprit in the students' plight is the recent sharp rise in tuition at all state universities in California, a result of the state's endemic budget problems. Unfortunately, PPIC also advises, "A proposed tax initiative could lead to increased revenue for the state, with policy-makers explicitly identifying higher education as a primary beneficiary if the initiative passes."

That's a reference to Gov. Jerry Brown's $9 billion proposed tax increase, for which he submitted petitions last week to qualify it for the November ballot. Actually, the opposite is the real problem: That the state's businesses and workers already are overburdened with high taxes and too many regulations, and are going bankrupt or fleeing the state, thus crashing the tax base. More taxes only would make matters worse.

"The bad weather in other states keeps our students away only so long," Lance Izumi told us; he's an education-policy analyst for the Pacific Research Institute. "Yet a lot of California policy-makers think that people will simply respond to the good weather here. But economic factors are important in the end. Other states are less expensive, less bureaucratic - and now maybe have better-quality schools. Policymakers need to see how they're allotting college money to give students the best bang for their bucks."

As we noted in a recent editorial, university administrative pay remains shockingly high. Cal State presidents make as much as $400,000 a year in total compensation. And not enough is going to classrooms. For example, according to the North County Times, 43 percent of the $23.8 million budget at Cal State San Marcos in 2010 went to classroom instruction.

Izumi said state schools still also fund too many pointless courses. "Colleges need to make hard decisions about what courses they prioritize," he said. He added that community colleges have been doing a better job, gearing their courses to preparing students to complete their educations at four-year universities.

Here's one course we found in Cal State Fullerton course catalog, subsidized with your tax dollars: "American Studies 346: American Culture Through Spectator Sports," described as, "Includes analysis of sports rituals, symbols and heroes." How about just watching ESPN, for the price of a basic-cable subscription?

Here's another: "Philosophy 384, Philosophy of the Body," described as, "examining how correcting philosophy's bias towards the mind informs our understanding of social hierarchy, gender identity and exclusion from public life." But don't they use the mind to read and discuss class material? Whatever.

"These are hard times that require hard decisions even though some constituencies will be upset by it," Izumi urged.

As with a family or business, in hard times, state schools need to cut waste pointless classes and bloated administration to make themselves more attractive to the rising generation.