History of IDEA
Jeannie Oakes, Founder and Former Director
Youth Voice in School Finance
NEW REPORT: Los Angeles' road to A-G for all
Without Dollars and Sense Powerpoint
Past Educational Opportunity Reports
Lockyer warns that spending cap could spell doom for higher ed
- 07-14-2011
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By Steven Harmon/Contra Costa Times
State Treasurer Bill Lockyer warned that a spending cap that the Legislature qualified for the ballot will do untold harm to colleges and universities if approved by voters next year. The cap, approved last year by the Legislature as part of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's last budget, is unusually restrictive and will force a significant downsizing of government, Lockyer said Wednesday in remarks to the Sacramento Press Club. "I don't see anything fundamentally objectionable" to the idea of spending caps, Lockyer said, "but you'll have unintended mischievous consequences" with the ballot measure, ACA 4, which provides for a 3.8 percent rate of growth for government spending. The problem, Lockyer said, is that one of the fastest areas of government growth, health care spending, grows as much as three times the rate of inflation. Because no one has been able to figure out how to curb health care costs, the Legislature would have to go after easier targets, such as universities and colleges -- which withstood hundreds of millions in cuts this year alone. (more...)
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