Gov. Jerry Brown officially signed off on Thursday on a $500 million cut to the University of California, and even deeper reductions may be on the way.

Brown has not reached a compromise with Republicans to put a measure extending an estimated $14 billion in taxes on the ballot in a special June election. He said in a press conference that he is still pushing for a vote, but time is running out.

Failure of the package to pass, or even get on the ballot, means the cuts to the UC could double to as much as $1 billion.

Raising tuition another 7 percent, cutting enrollment and laying off faculty and staff are among the next steps at that point, budget and capital resources vice president Patrick Lenz told the UC Board of Regents on March 16.

Lenz said the consensus from the regents is to protect enrollment.
But that comes with a price tag, he added.

Regent Richard Blum voiced his opinion that the only way out of the crisis is to charge high tuition while offering a high level of financial aid. That would mean turning the UC down a path taken by private, nonprofit universities years ago, said Kenneth Green, former associate director of UCLA’s Higher Education Research Institute.

Green recently conducted one of the largest surveys of American college and university presidents to date with the online newspaper Inside Higher Ed, called “Presidential Perspectives.”

The survey found that presidents of public institutions generally felt disillusioned with methods used to solve budget problems, he said.
“(They said), this is all stuff tried before,” he said.

To mediate the short-term impact of cuts on campuses, the UC Office of the President announced plans to shrink down its operations by $50 million and shift the savings to individual UCs.

The move marks the next step in an effort to delegate more power to the campus level. UCOP will ask for a fixed amount from each campus every year, and the campus will be able to determine the source of the funds.

UCLA is at an advantage over other campuses because of its broad range of funding sources, including the medical center, said Nathan Brostrom, UC vice president of business operations.

Chancellor Gene Block said he supports UCOP’s plan for downsizing, which he said will increase efficiency.