Why UC needs a seventh audit in less than four years

By The San Diego Union-Tribune Editorial Board

After a fall 2014 skirmish with University of California President Janet Napolitano over UC’s budget and tuition, state legislative leaders ordered staffers to take a hard look at UC’s books.

What they found raised new questions. In March 2015, the staffers reported it was difficult to determine why UC’s budget — only a small fraction of which comes directly from the state — had jumped 40 percent from 2006-07 to 2014-15. They also struggled to determine whether tuition was being used to subsidize faculty research, contrary to administration claims. This would not happen in a well-run organization.

Now, 17 months later, there is fresh cause for concern. This week, state lawmakers authorized a $418,000 audit of UC’s Office of the President to determine why its budget has gone up nearly 60 percent since 2011 — and just how many employees it had. One of the lawmakers who requested the audit — Assemblyman Phil Ting, D-San Francisco — says UC told the state Department of Finance it had 1,186 employees, but UC’s website says the office has 1,672 full-time employees or the equivalent in part-time workers.

Perhaps an organization as big as, say, General Motors might not be able to pin down within 500 employees how many workers it has. But the office of UC’s president?

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[Source]: The San Diego Union-Tribune