Penry is right: Ritter could have stopped addition of 2,000+ higher education jobs

Jessica Peck Corry of the Independence Institute blogs at the Denver Post’s blog, Politics West:

Ritter conveniently relies on constitutional and statutory language to proclaim the problem out of his hands. In Oct. 18th’s Denver Post reporter Tim Hoover elaborated, citing constitutional language providing that public colleges “shall have the general supervision of their respective institutions and the exclusive control and direction of all funds of and appropriations . . . . unless otherwise provided by law.” State law says cash is given to colleges as a lump sum, with recipients maintaining spending discretion.

But, in fact, legislators have substantial control over wasteful education spending, with universities spending generously to annually fund aggressive state-level lobbying efforts. If Ritter and his fellow Democrats, who now control both houses of the state legislature, have no ability to fight back against questionable campus spending, it’s merely because they’ve delegated power away to our universities.

And in many cases they have. Earlier this year, Democrats shot down Penry’s efforts to fight back against out-of-control university salaries. The proposal, put forth during budget negotiations and based on model legislation put forth by the Independence Institute, sought to require all Colorado’s institutions to cut six-figure salaries by at least five percent. While the proposal could have shaved up to $12 million from CU’s budget, Democrats quickly shot Penry down, saying the proposal would have made Colorado less competitive in hiring top faculty.

Links

Penry’s right on higher ed hiring hoax

An Academic Arms Race: The catastrophic rise of taxpayer-funded salaries at the University of Colorado and its peer institutions

Colorado college chiefs say they are hiring only the staff they can’t do without
Despite some Republicans’ criticisms, they say they hire only for jobs they can’t do without. By Tim Hoover

 

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