EDITORIAL: Find money for UCR med school in UC’s budget

EDITORIAL: Find money for UCR med school in UC’s budget
University of California officials should ensure additional funding for a new medical school at UC Riverside.

THE PRESS-ENTERPRISE | Published: January 22, 2013; 06:23 PM

A thriving medical school at UC Riverside would be a valuable addition to California and the Inland region — and the university system should help the new institution prosper and expand. The governor’s new budget plan identifies no funding for the medical school. But UC officials should find the money for this high-level priority out of the university’s systemwide funds.

The University of California regents’ latest budget proposal seeks $15 million to support the medical school at UCR, but that item does not appear in Gov. Jerry Brown’s 2013-14 budget plans. Sen. Richard Roth, D-Riverside, and Assemblyman Jose Medina, D-Riverside, last month introduced bills that would allocate $15 million a year to the new medical school, but the governor rejected similar efforts in the past two years.

University officials have been trying to land state funding for the medical school since 2008, without success. UCR managed to line up $10 million a year over the next decade in startup funding from local government and private sources — sufficient for the school to win preliminary accreditation. The medical school plans to open in fall 2013 with 50 students, but expanding the number of students in the program would require state funding, UCR officials say.

The school’s fate should not depend on who wins a tug of war between the governor and UC officials, however. The university’s systemwide budget calls the medical school “a critically important initiative” for the region and state — but then says that the school “cannot be sustained” by redirecting existing UC system resources.

The governor, however, says that the UC system needs to make better use of the money it has, and he offers strong evidence that the issue is not UC’s resources so much as political will. Brown’s budget plan notes that UC spending jumped by 15 percent between 2007-08 and 2012-13, even as the state budget faced massive shortfalls. And hikes in tuition, which nearly doubled over that period, brought in far more than the university system lost in state funding during that time. Surely, UC can find $15 million for a critical priority out of a systemwide basic operating budget the governor puts at $6.7 billion next year.

And California badly needs the additional doctors the state’s first new public medical school in 40 years would provide. The number of doctors that graduate from state schools has remained flat over the past 15 years, while the state’s population has expanded by about 20 percent. The Inland region, particularly, needs additional physicians. The California HealthCare Foundation reported last year that the Inland region’s demand for doctors continues to outpace the supply — which is low compared to other parts of the state. A UCR medical school would improve the chances that physicians would stay in the area after graduating.

UC officials call the UCR medical school a crucial program that would be a “regional and statewide resource.” The University of California should make sure an initiative that significant receives the support it needs — and not just if the state puts more money behind the cause.