Students to ASUA: “WTF? Where’s the funding?”

The official Poverty Bash numbers are in, and it’s ugly. From the Star:

The first concert in Arizona Stadium since 1977 lost nearly $1 million.

The Last Smash Platinum Bash, which featured Jay-Z and Kelly Clarkson, ended up $917,000 in the red. The concert cost $1,420,000, and ticket and merchandise sales brought in only $503,502, according to student organizers.

. . .

The ASUA will apply its entire emergency budget reserve — $350,000 — to help cover the shortfall.

The rest will come from the UA BookStores, which has been sharing a portion of its revenues to support the ASUA since the 1930s.

There’s not really any way to spin this, and ASUA doesn’t really try:

Tommy Bruce, outgoing president of the Associated Students of the University of Arizona, blamed the event’s struggles on the economy.

“Nobody predicted the economy would be the way it is now last May,” he said.

This site can resemble a broken record when it comes to transparency, but here again is a case where more transparency might have helped ASUA. Bruce was insistent on keeping the concert super-secret throughout the planning process, ensuring that by the time the event was actually announced, students were already reeling from the effects of the economy. Had even a broad framework of the plan been released in the fall semester – something like “ASUA to host concert at Arizona Stadium” – students might have been able to anticipate the event, rather than being blindsided post-spring break.

All of this is incidental to Bruce’s main point, which has a bit of merit to it. Yet it’s curious how little sympathy he has had for this argument in the past, when it was coming from the state legislature. After all, they’ve been dealing with the economic downturn a bit themselves:

The Legislature’s budget staff announced Wednesday that its projection for the current $9.9 billion budget’s shortfall is now nearly $1.6 billion, up from $1.2 billion previously.

Budget director Richard Stavneak announced the increase during a briefing for lawmakers on the scope of the state’s budget woes. Legislators are contemplating cuts in most state programs.

When such cuts were proposed, President Bruce replied, “WTF? Where’s the funding?” Now, the tables have been turned:

That means less money for the ASUA over the next five years.

How much less? This year, the BookStores shared about $530,000 of their revenue with the student group. For each of the next five years that amount will be reduced by $114,000.

As a direct result of this master plan it will be the students, whether they be seeking club funding or the services that ASUA provides, who will be wondering where the money has gone. Meanwhile, the crowned Dauphin Nagata serves as a more ideologically agreeable Brewer figure – just as Napolitano spent and spent, leaving Brewer to pay the bills, so Bruce will leave Nagata will a rather neutered ASUA. Perhaps Nagata will be tempted to blame his former master for troubles down the road? Whatever happens, there’s enough irony here that Saraswati might come on down to Tucson and shower goodwill on all of us – and by good will, I mean G&Ts (it’s summertime. . .).

It’s not all bad news, though. From an intra-ASUA perspective, the association won’t be spending as prolifigately as they have, and will instead have to focus on more marginal matters – some of which will be related to good governance. From an external perspective, this snafu might just be enough to spark interest in ASUA that doesn’t relate to becoming part of the Family. Such a reformist movement – ideally, sponsored by a quasi-PAC organization akin to the CCC – would serve as a more moderate distillation of the anarchist fury that arose last year, and possibly bring back elections with competing ideas.

Still, I wouldn’t buy your fall semester books at the UA Bookstore if you don’t like how the profit is being spent.

UPDATE: Laura Donovan beat this site to the punch, and delivers a far pithier judgement. “Stop throwing concerts” is far from the worst policy proposal that I’ve heard.

Brewer’s postulate

Arizona Governor Jan Brewer held a press conference on underage drinking Wednesday, and Daily Wildcat reporter Cody Calamaio brought back her thoughts on the un-safety epidemic plaguing properties around the UA:

With the recent passage of the Pima County “Social Host” Ordinance, property owners who are over the age of 21 are held accountable for underage drinking on any property that is under their control.

The ordinance, which was adopted by the Pima County Board of Supervisors on March 3, is set to take effect tomorrow.

“Underage drinking continues to be the number one substance abuse problem facing youth in Arizona,” Arizona Governor Jan Brewer said during a press conference yesterday at the Pima County Consolidated Justice Court east courtyard, 115 N. Church St. “Adults must learn that there is no such thing as safe drinking for anyone under the age of 21.”

Except, you know, just about everywhere else in the free world. But pay no attention to that little bit of unreason. Look! A beauty pageant winner!

Tanya Valladares, Ms. Pima County 2009 and UA physiology junior, endorsed the underage drinking crackdown by the county.

“As a member of the Greek Life at the University of Arizona, I’ve seen firsthand the negative effects of underage drinking. I’ve heard the stories of friends being sexually assaulted,” she said. “This ordinance will help reduce off-site underage drinking parties held by fraternities at private houses.”

A nice thought, but I’m skeptical. The city of Tucson has had a “social host” ordinance since 2007, along with the more onerous Red Tag provisions. Unless most students are getting their underage drink on in the Benson Highway corridor or north of River road, this seems like a law and order publicity stunt more than anything else.

Plus, it may well be that Ms. Valladares has never let a drop of the demon rum seep between her prizewinning underage lips, but even if she’s teetotal it’s totally ironic to see a representative of the Greek community–the very organizations that have transformed underage drinking “risk management issues” from an amateur art to a plausibly-deniable science–throw her support behind this ordinance.

And I thought it was bad when President Shelton brushed off the Amethyst Initiative. We don’t need yet another crackdown on underage drinking. We need sensible alcohol policy that treats students like the adults they are.

Recall called off

Recall the recall? It’s been recalled. From RecallJanBrewer.org:

Unfortunately, the general consensus among people who know far more about this system, and politics in general, than I do seems to be that a recall vote isn’t a great idea. The timing of Brewer’s taking office makes it too expensive for anyone to campaign against her in a March election and then have to do it again 8 months later in the 2010 general election. It would also cost the state several million dollars, which would only make our current budget woes worse and might even further damage education, which goes completely against the entire purpose of this idea.

Points for effort, though. If you’re still itchin’ to sign a petition, I’ve got another one you could try.

Trouble Brewin’

Round one of the Great Budget Bout went to the Arizona legislature, but one UA student has a plan to keep fighting–by recalling recently installed Arizona Governor Jan Brewer. This week math education undergrad Alex Swindle launched RecallJanBrewer.org, a website meant to help students organize and collect over 200,000 signatures required by law to recall Brewer and hold a special election for Governor. His case against the Gov:

On January 31^st Governor Brewer signed off on $284 million of cuts to education spending. This includes $142 million from the public universities, $133 million from public K-12 schools, and $9 million from community colleges. This comes on top of Arizona’s ranking dead last in the Smartest State Awards, based upon legislatures’ commitment to public education funding.

Clearly Jan Brewer is not the only one to blame, and in fact the entire legislature has a long history of failing to support education. However, former Governor Janet Napolitano had a record of standing up to a legislature determined to keep Arizona’s education at the bottom, and her replacement signed off on the massive cuts.

Further, Democrats shouldn’t be the only ones who care: a poor education system affects everyone in the state regardless of political affiliation. I, along with many other Arizona Democrats, would be perfectly fine having a Republican governor as long as he or she were committed to the support of public education. That’s the whole reason for this site’s existence: calling a special election is not about removing a Republican and replacing her with a Democrat. It’s about sending a message to the Arizona government that education is important to the citizens of this state. A special election will serve to make the politicians realize that the public cares about its schools, and give us a chance to elect someone who shares our views.

I have to admire any action from students that evinces intelligence above and beyond the boneheaded “40%=Deth” brouhaha, but an attempt to punish Brewer for making budget cuts strikes me as misplaced rage. Sure, she may have flown off to the Super Bowl while the ink was drying on the state budget, but former Gov. Janet Napolitano is the one who flew off to Washington to Secure Our Homeland and left a $1.6 billion budget deficit behind.

In fact, I can’t help but feel a little sympathy for Brewer. What would you do instead? Make deeper cuts to K-12 education? Stop funding Medicaid? Lay off more prosecutors or police? Or maybe raise taxes during the deepest recession in decades? This isn’t about “failing to support education” as much as it’s about failing to balance a budget that’s been in deep deficits since this time last year. As Ben Kalafut wrote over at Goldwater State, “there is no ‘other side'” scheming to cripple higher ed in Arizona: there is simply “a State with a budget shortfall.” In all likelihood, Arizona’s universities would have faced cuts–regardless of whether Jan or Janet had the dubious honor of approving them. Recall might be sweet revenge–but it won’t balance the budget.

Looking forward to a UABOR?

While focus remains rightly on the current budget situation, Shelton also took time to criticize other introduced bills in the current legislative session:

Shelton also discussed the potential impact of House Concurrent Resolution 2002 sponsored by Rep. Warde Nichols, R-Gilbert.

The proposed resolution would be an elimination of the current structure of the Arizona Board of Regents, and instead the three state universities would be overseen by individual boards with legislative ties.

“We have a terrific Board of Regents,” Shelton said. “And for the legislature to want to politicize the operations of the universities, I think, is a very bad sign.”

Shelton said this could mean the legislature would get into detailed levels of budget allocations, including potentially managing all the tuition income of the universities.

“This really violates basic business practices,” he said. “Business practices are you hire great people, you entrust them with responsibilities, and you push the decisions down to the people who are really in the know.”

To get some background for Shelton’s criticisms, let’s take a look at how the Arizona Board of Regents is actually chosen. From the state Constitution, Article XI, Section 5:

The regents of the university, and the governing boards of other state educational institutions, shall be appointed by the governor with the consent of the senate in the manner prescribed by law, except that the governor shall be, ex-officio, a member of the board of regents of the university.

Right now, the governor appoints all ABOR members, and the Senate must confirm. This, of course, parrots the “advise and consent” clause in the U.S. Constitution. But are presidential appointments political? Of course they are. To suggest that this is an apolitical process following “basic business principles” is not only wrong, but bizarre.

Now, compare Shelton’s characterization of HCR 2002 with the actual bill text (which, as a note of clarification, would serve as an amendment to the aforementioned constitution text):

B.  Each public university in this state shall be governed by a separate board of regents for each university.  The board of regents for each university shall consist of the following members who are appointed with the consent of the senate and who serve eight year terms, to begin and end on the third Monday in January:

1.  One member who is appointed by the president of the senate.

2.  One member who is appointed by the speaker of the house of representatives.

3.  Three members who are appointed by the governor.

C.  The board of regents for each university shall have powers and duties as prescribed by law.

D.  Notwithstanding subsection B, the initial terms of members of the boards of regents for each university are:

1.  For the members appointed pursuant to subsection B, paragraph 1, four years.

2.  For the members appointed pursuant to subsection B, paragraph 2, five years.

3.  For the members appointed pursuant to subsection B, paragraph 3, one term shall be six years, one term shall be seven years and one term shall be eight years.

All that has happened is that the power of appointment has been diffused. It’s hard to say why the legislature would more meddling under this set-up than they are usually. The governor still has the most power, appointing the most seats with the longest terms. All seats still must be approved by the Senate. Shelton never fully explains why the appointments of Jan Brewer would be so much more effective, and so much less political, than the appointments of Kirk Adams or Bob Burns.

Shelton’s concerns over this resolution (which, incidently, would have to be approved in a state-wide vote to be enacted anyways) also do a great job of burying the lede, which is that the University of Arizona would have its own Board of Regents, completely separated from ASU and NAU. What such a system allows is for each university to make decisions independent of the others. Already the Board of Regents is a quasi-independent legal structure (the term “legal corporation” is thrown around when talking about BoR’s), but allowing the UA to have its own board would be a huge step forward in becoming independent. And, of course, it follows in the paths of the U. California and the U. Michigan systems.

Another related idea is making the Board of Regents an elected body. The Chronicle discussed the idea back in 2004, in the article, “State Regents: Should They Be Elected or Appointed?” (The article requires a password, but you can access it through the Library’s article search with a NetID.) Four states — Colorado, Michigan, Nebraska, and Nevada — currently use such boards for their public university systems, with varying opinions on their success.