Welcome to the joint hearing of the Assembly Budget Subcommittee on Education and the Assembly Higher Education Committee - which will review the recent report released earlier this month by the Legislative Analysts Office titled “A Review of UC's Long Rang Development Planning Process”. I am grateful for the participation of the respective Chairs of those committees, Assemblymembers Julia Brownley and Anthony Portantino and I will call on them for any opening remarks in a moment.
I served two terms on the Santa Cruz City Council in the 1980's, a city in which one of ten University of California campuses is located. In the time I served on the City Council, a Long Range Development Plan was completed, a ballot measure on the subject was passed, a suit was filed, and at the end of this process - a lawsuit settlement was reached. It was a very unsatisfying process - and led to lengthy and painful community conflict between a city I love and a university that I also love and attended. In the years since that experience, I have given long thought as to how to bridge these conflicts in town-gown growth processes.
Structural differences are at the heart of this conflict. The University is a state institution that provides higher education under the state master plan to qualified students. The University believes that the right to grow and develop a successful academic program is a state issue not subject to local control.
The University is exempt from local land use review under the state constitution, presenting two conflicting facts for local governments - university land is off the local tax rolls, and increased service needs are only mitigated to the extent that the University voluntarily agrees to deal with them. Local jurisdictions pick up the tab for state-wide costs with local tax dollars.
Each town-gown relationship is different, based on the size of the campus, the services provided to the University, and the surrounding community's reaction. The common theme among most campuses is that the University should assist with state-generated costs that local governments now pay associated with university growth.
I attempted to resolve this conflict with a bill in 2005 by suggesting voluntary contracts between local jurisdictions and the University - which would make good on the mitigations the university includes in its long range plans, and also insure that the local jurisdiction completes its obligation on the mitigations the university pays for. This bill eventually led to the request for the study that the LAO released earlier this month and is the subject of today's hearing.
In reviewing the study, the LAO raised concerns in a number of subject areas, and we have structured today's hearing about those subjects. First the LAO looked at long-term enrollment projections for UC, and raised some questions about the how current they are, how the period of the projections matches the long range plans, and the breakdown of enrollment projections between undergraduate and graduate students. Second, there were questions about the LRDP process, its standardization, and the ability for public participation. Third, the study suggested that the University of California has the goal of “Fair Share Agreements” as a mechanism to work through associated issues, but found that the university has not entered into one. Fourth, the study suggests legislative oversight on these issues as the University issues move through the budget and legislative process.
I am pleased by this report, as it steps back from the emotional characterizations of this conflict and allows, in a civil, objective manner, for the legislature to consider the policies that might allow town-gown conflicts to be bridged.
I believe there is a role for the legislature in resolving this conflict. Too often these matters are now relegated to attorneys, and the long-range plans designed more to withstand legal challenges than to meet university planning needs in concert with the local communities.
Today, we'll have the legislative analyst and representatives of the university of California comment on this report, and have committee members ask questions to try to ascertain the facts of this matter. We have an agenda item for public comment at the end.
I do not anticipate any action by the committees today, but I expect there will be a follow-up request to the University for further information based on the today's testimony that would be useful during consideration of the University of California budget hearing this spring. Thank you all for attending.