Day 45

(I definitely had a day 43 post for Tuesday, but I wrote it from home, and apparently my home computer ate it instead of posting it, hence the missing entry and incorrectly labeled "Day 43" yesterday, which I have now corrected. I had written a short, slightly snotty blurb about a meeting that had been canceled because of the rain Tuesday and how foolish I thought that was. Maybe it's for the best that it was lost to the cyber-gobblins.)

The ladies room at this place seems to be becoming my source of juicy information about protests and the like over this budget thing. According to a flier stuck to the back of my bathroom stall door, The CA Campaign to Save Public Education will be holding a "statewide conference to organize against the cuts" here on Berkeley's campus next Saturday. The goal appears to be to gather all people who work in all levels of education across the state to come up with ways to "save" all levels of CA public education from pre-school all the way through the college and university systems.

Today is supposed to be the deadline for a union agreement about the furlough, but I've heard nary a peep about it from anyone official. I chatted with a few co-workers who will be affected by the decisions (either themselves or through spouses who work on campus), and they are generally fumed with how the union is behaving and handling this, and seem to collectively agree that the union leaders are shooting themselves in the foot in regards to respect and success in future negotiations with campus and their own members.

On my way to work this morning, I got a good healthy eye-roll and head-shaking out of a story reported on local NPR. A new report is showing that the state-worker furlough plan is not saving the state nearly as much money "as the governor might have hoped for." Turns out that the furlough is effectively just leading to delayed costs that will be added to the next fiscal year, in addition to reduced income taxes and other forms of revenue being collected. Upon further investigation, I have discovered that this research and report were done by UC Berkeley, where of course we have our own potentially idiotic furlough. According to a chart in an article on Berkeley's website, cutting the $2 billion in wages and benefits from state employees for three days of furlough will only save the state about $236 million. A one day furlough would actually bring in slightly more cash for the state--$256 million--which should raise a great big bright red flag that, um, maybe the furlough logic is flawed. These figures are barely a drop in the proverbial bucket of the state's empty coffers. And these numbers do not account for the loss to the CA economy because workers are now, of course, spending a lot less, which some experts believe will mean that the furlough will actually cost the state money. Good plan, guys! Were your calculators broken when you came up with this plan in the first place? Seems like my theory that layoffs, brain drain, and attrition would end up costing the university may not have been so far-fetched after all. But seriously, can you believe that this report was commissioned and is being issued now rather than BEFORE the furlough was implemented? If you have a moment and are willing to participate, please raise your right hand and promise your state, fellow citizens, and future generations that when the next round of elections and voting come up, that you will vote these incompetent morons out of office.

My boss surprised me this afternoon when she sent an email asking if anyone would be willing to plan our annual Halloween party. It's potluck of course, but I was still glad to learn that we haven't actually been totally banned from having any sort of fun around here. Hooray for parties!