Category: Uncategorized (Page 5 of 5)

Democrats divided: The race for state schools superintendent

September 23, 2014 / Sigrid Bathen

By Sigrid Bathen posted September 23, 2014

For an obscure elective office that is often ignored, unknown or regarded as superfluous in California’s convoluted education bureaucracy, the November election for state Superintendent of Public Instruction is shaping up as one of the most contentious — and costly — races among statewide candidates.

The superintendency typically is viewed as a down-ticket backwater – a nonpartisan office with limited power that some say should be abolished.

Superintendent Tom Torlakson, 65, a mild-mannered former state legislator, Contra Costa County supervisor and high school science teacher, against charter-school administrator Marshall Tuck, 41, a Harvard Business School graduate who worked for several years in Silicon Valley and on Wall Street.

But this year, it has become a lightning rod for widespread dissatisfaction with schools in California, which have consistently been ranked among the lowest-performing and poorly funded in the nation.

At the center of the campaign battle is a Superior Court judge’s blistering decision favoring the plaintiffs in Vergara v. California, a closely watched lawsuit challenging the state’s cumbersome, expensive, teacher-tenure and dismissal system. And while ostensibly nonpartisan, the race between two Democratic candidates in a heavily Democratic state has revealed long-standing divisions among Democrats over education reform.

“This is a battle that has been raging [within] the Democratic Party for about 20 years, but it has become quite fierce,” Dr. Raphael Sonenshein, director of the Pat Brown Institute at California State University, Los Angeles, recently told the education news service, Cabinet Report. “In California, with Democrats so dominant, you look for issues that are going to divide the majority party, and I think this one is pretty close to the top.”

The election pits an embattled but well-funded incumbent Superintendent Tom Torlakson, 65, a mild-mannered former state legislator, Contra Costa County supervisor and high school science teacher, against charter-school administrator Marshall Tuck, 41, a Harvard Business School graduate who worked for several years in Silicon Valley and on Wall Street before founding the highly regarded Green Dot Charter Schools. Later, he was CEO of former Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s Partnership for L.A. Schools.

Another round of independent expenditures – which by law cannot be coordinated with the candidates’ campaigns – is expected in the general election season.

While outspent in the primary by Torlakson supporters – primarily massive spending by the California Teachers Association and other unions — Tuck has major support from several wealthy pro-charter donors, including philanthropist Eli Broad and businessman William Bloomfield. Tuck’s campaign benefited from some $1.4 million in independent expenditures, including several large contributions from the California Senior Advocates League PAC, a group funded primarily by Broad and Bloomfield.

Tuck was been endorsed over Torlakson – in the primary — by all major California newspapers, which is unusual so early in the election season.

The CTA and other unions spent $2.6 million in the primary for broadcast and print ads for Torlakson, and another $2 million for “issue ads,” which featured Torlakson but don’t expressly advocate for the candidate.

Another round of independent expenditures – which by law cannot be coordinated with the candidates’ campaigns – is expected in the general election season, although both candidates and their handlers are understandably vague about when or how much. A recent spate of independent expenditures on Torlakson’s behalf came from the CTA, the state and national Federation of Teachers and other labor unions – some $450,000 as of Sept. 19, according to Election Track and the Secretary of State’s office.

According to state financial disclosure records, both candidates reported less than $200,000 cash on hand as of June 30 – $194,550 for Torlakson and $179, 913 for Tuck. Total reported expenditures by each candidate from Jan. 1 through June 30 were very close – more than $1.14 million for Torlakson and just over $1 million for Tuck. But as of mid-September, a sharp uptick in candidate contributions favored Tuck, with $381,000 for Torlakson and $448,000 for Tuck.

Consultant: “There was a horrible turnout in the primary and [likely to be] horrible in the general. It’s very hard to get anybody’s attention — unless you have money.”

“There is a ton of money involved,” said Kim Alexander of the nonpartisan California Voter Foundation, a nonprofit which monitors campaign spending and elections. “The unions appear to be stepping up for Torlakson because he has an opponent who has demonstrated he can raise significant amounts of money.”

Getting the Word Out. . .
A veteran campaign consultant knowledgeable about the election said funding for the schools is improving with the economy and strong public support for school funding, but getting the word out is difficult, and running for a little-known state schools office requires campaign cash.

“Unfortunately for a lot of us who care deeply about these issues,” said the consultant, who asked not to be identified, “this is the most difficult time to run for statewide office. There was a horrible turnout in the primary and [likely to be] horrible in the general. It’s very hard to get anybody’s attention — unless you have money. . .

“If you look at the people who fund Tuck’s campaign, they have a very different view of what is a public school, and ‘reform’ is often code for vouchers. People upset with the schools are upset with the cutbacks — no money for counselors, for nothing but the bare minimum. This was the first spring when there haven’t been pink slips. Because of Proposition 30 (Gov. Brown’s sales and income tax initiative, which was passed in 2012 and strongly supported by Torlakson), there is now some capacity to put money back into the schools.”

“I support due-process rights for teachers, but the law is broken and needs to be changed,” he said. “The tenure process is dysfunctional.” — Gary Hart

Tuck, who has never run for public office, says he decided to run after his efforts in the L.A. Partnership, aimed at turning around 17 dismally performing schools in low-income, central-city neighborhoods, were repeatedly stymied by arcane teacher hiring and dismissal rules in an entrenched education bureaucracy.

The strongly worded Vergara decision on June 10 — and reaffirmed in a final ruling on Aug. 28 — came at a fortuitous time for the upstart young candidate, galvanizing public opinion on school inequality and teacher tenure. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Rolf M. Treu said K-12 education in California “shocks the conscience” and is flatly unconstitutional for many students, particularly those in poor and minority neighborhoods – a decision which has focused unusually intense attention on the race, as well as copious amounts of campaign cash.

The decision is almost certain to be mired in a lengthy appeals process, and the issue of appealing Vergara is itself controversial.

“These court battles can go on for many years, and nothing may happen, but I hope this does help generate more attention,” says former state Sen. Gary Hart, D-Santa Barbara, a former high school teacher who chaired the Senate Education Committee for 12 years. He was education secretary to Gov. Gray Davis and is the author of many major education bills, including measures to increase school funding and create charter schools.

“I support due-process rights for teachers, but the law is broken and needs to be changed,” he said. “The tenure process is dysfunctional.”

Those with long experience in California education – some of whom do not want to be quoted by name in a contentious race – say that too often “blame the incumbent” becomes the mantra when public dissatisfaction with schools drives elections. In this election, many say, “blame the teachers” becomes an equally convenient form of scapegoating in a Byzantine state education system with plenty of blame to go around.

A recent Field Poll found Tuck leading Torlakson among likely voters by 31 percent to 28 percent – with a whopping 41 percent undecided. The Tuck campaign issued a jubilant press release about the poll in which campaign manager/communications director Cynara Lilly said “voters are ready for a change” and “when given a choice, will choose the candidate with experience turning around public schools – not the Sacramento insider.”

Gov. Brown chose not to appoint a Secretary of Education, instead focusing on the role of the state board as a policy-making body and emphasizing more local control of schools.

But early polls often do not reflect final outcomes. What does appear likely is this: The coming weeks will unleash a blizzard of campaign ads – mainly paid for by massive infusions of independent expenditures.

“This is a battle between the CTA and so-called education ‘reformers’ who hate the unions, and have their own agendas about the way the schools should be run,” said one veteran political analyst who asked not to be named. “They have a certain notoriety because of the public’s clamor about bad schools. . .Does it matter? Does it make a difference? That depends on what you think about the power of the superintendent.”

Hart and many other longtime educators involved in education politics say the superintendency is a largely ceremonial position, with few powers beyond the “bully pulpit.” Hart, who seriously considered running for the job and ultimately decided against it, has long said the office should be abolished.

The current system, critics say, too often works at cross-purposes, with an elected state superintendent, who heads the state Department of Education, as well as a state Board of Education appointed by the governor, plus hundreds of local school districts and boards, county offices of education and boards.

Gov. Brown chose not to appoint a Secretary of Education, instead focusing on the role of the state board as a policy-making body and emphasizing more local control of schools. In a recent interview with Education Week magazine, board President Michael Kirst, a veteran state and national educator and administrator, said California “for years had a fractured and fractious policymaking system,” creating confusion over “who was in charge.” He said the governor has worked closely with the board and Torlakson, “most of whose positions on education are close to his own.”

‘Blame the Teachers’
Both Torlakson and Brown took considerable heat over their recent decision to appeal the popular Vergara decision. The state’s appeal was filed Aug. 29.

“The system is so convoluted and it can take two to three years or more, costing districts $100,000 (and more). There is no reason for these cases to drag on so long,” — Joan Buchanan

Torlakson says the Superior Court decision is constitutionally flawed and unfairly blames teachers for problems in schools. “The people who dedicate their lives to the teaching profession deserve our admiration and support,” he said in a prepared statement after the August ruling. “Instead, this ruling lays the failings of our education system at their feet.”

“No teacher is perfect,” he added. “A very few are not worthy of the job. School districts have always had the power to dismiss those who do not measure up.” He pointed to a bill he and the governor supported, by Assembly Education Committee Chair Joan Buchanan, D-Alamo, which aims to shorten the arduous hearing and appeal process.

Although critics say the measure provides only limited relief, Buchanan, who served 18 years on the San Ramon Valley school board, including four terms as president, says it is a good first step and brings opposing sides in the controversy to the table. “The system is so convoluted,” she said, “and it can take two to three years or more, costing districts $100,000 (and more). There is no reason for these cases to drag on so long,”

Colleagues and even longtime supporters of Torlakson are often torn about the election, particularly prominent Democratic educators who may be union members.

But they also know firsthand the failings of the teacher-tenure and disciplinary process, which has allowed efforts to discipline or fire clearly incompetent, even abusive, teachers to drag on for years, deterring administrators from even attempting to fire a teacher because of the time and expense of the hearing and appeal process.

“When a district goes into receivership (state takeover), it’s usually been a long way to get there, and it’s a long way to get out. We’ve made real progress, but we still have a ways to go.” — Paul Hefnerf

Also at issue in the election is the current two-year probationary period for new teachers, which critics say is actually only 16 months and is not remotely sufficient to determine a teacher’s competence. Nor, they say, does the current system provide adequate support and mentoring to a new teacher who may be having trouble in the classroom.

Dr. Barbara O’Connor, a prominent retired political communications professor at California State University, Sacramento, who founded the Institute for the Study of Politics and Media, said Torlakson “gets blamed for all the woes of education,” including the financial collapse of many school districts in California. And, while Torlakson is blamed for education’s failings, she added “he also has access to [campaign] finances, so it counter-balances.”

Torlakson campaign manager Paul Hefner says the number of districts in financial trouble has dwindled substantially since Torlakson took office in 2011. “At the height of the crisis, one of three kids attended a school [that was] in financial trouble,” Hefner said. “When a district goes into receivership (state takeover), it’s usually been a long way to get there, and it’s a long way to get out. We’ve made real progress, but we still have a ways to go.”

As a former department chair, O’Connor said she often faced personnel and tenure issues, which come with different rules at the university level, and much longer “probationary” periods. “In the universities, you have to wait seven years,” she said. “It’s an onerous process. To have collective bargaining and tenure is tough. I can’t imagine [granting tenure] after only 16 months.”

A union member (the California Faculty Association in the CSU) throughout her long career in higher education, O’Connor says, “I believe in unions.” At the same time, “I’m not always happy with them (the unions). . .I’m ready for some people who want to take some risk.” She has not taken a position in the election. She says she has visited Tuck’s Green Dot Schools and was impressed. “He’s nontraditional,” she said, “and smart.”

“And I’ve always supported Tom Torlakson, since he was in the Assembly,” O‘Connor added. “He’s a great human being, and his daughter Tamara is a friend (Tamara Torlakson is a senior associate at Dewey Square Group, a political consulting firm).”

‘Crippling Bureaucracy’
In an interview with Capitol Weekly, Tuck said the state’s education system “has been broken for a long time, and we do need real change. I’m not a politician, I’ve learned what it takes to do this work.”

But he’s vague on the specifics of how he would change a system entrenched in layers upon layers of legislative, administrative and legal requirements, both state and federal. He said he favors a collaborative approach – a position similar to Torlakson’s.

“The [state] Education Code constrains what can be done, and it’s a crippling bureaucracy,” Tuck said. “There is no individual position that is all-powerful, but this (the superintendency) is a uniquely influential position, for setting the vision, for fundamental change. It is the one position that is non-partisan, focused only on kids, with the ‘bully pulpit’ and specific assigned powers to drive unique change and move the work forward. But it has to be a collective effort.”

As for teacher discipline, he favors major changes in the process, one in which “you touch a kid, and you’re gone.” Working in challenging L.A. schools as part of the partnership with Villaraigosa and L.A. Unified, Tuck said, “We had teachers who literally hit kids and pushed them around, but we were told we couldn’t fire them.”

At the same time, he said, the increasingly controversial “last-hired-first-fired” system of union-backed hiring meant that many excellent teachers were regularly facing pink slips every spring – a particularly serious issue in low-performing schools in poor areas with high teacher turnover. “We had to lay off teachers of very high quality,” Tuck said. At one school, he said, half the teachers got layoff notices, while at other, more desirable schools, “only 5 percent received layoff notices.”

Tuck insists he favors tenure, and disagrees with the pro-voucher, anti-tenure views of some of his well-heeled supporters. “I’ve only worked in union schools,” he added. “I’m an independent, first and foremost.”

Former state Superintendent Delaine Eastin, who founded the California Teacher of the Year Foundation to provide funding for recognition of outstanding teachers and is on Torlakson’s list of supporters, said many top teachers favor significant changes in the probationary and tenure system which is at the heart of the current election. “Some of those teachers are not in favor of the current tenure system,” she said. “Many favor a three-year probationary period, with levels of [job] protection. . .I do think it’s too hard and too expensive to fire a teacher for doing evil things, let alone incompetence.”

California remains one of the lowest among the states in per-pupil spending.

Whatever happens in the superintendent’s election, with its promises of reform and a blizzard of campaign cash, the role of the office comes down to educating kids in an increasingly diverse, economically divided state with some 6 million kids currently attending public schools – an estimated one-fourth of them poor, many attending substandard facilities with overcrowded classrooms, too many failing to complete high school.

And while teacher tenure has become a driving issue in the election, adequate school funding is hardly mentioned. “Both sides agree on the need for more funding,” says Sonenshein. “They disagree about how education should be delivered.”

Post-recessionary infusions to K-12 budgets, with emphasis on poor and low-performing schools, in the governor’s budget are a good start, Eastin and others say, but hardly address the overcrowded classes, aging buildings, staff cutbacks and other gaping holes in the system that began with the 1978 passage of the property-tax limitation initiative, Proposition 13.

California remains one of the lowest among the states in per-pupil spending. “The solution is a long-term plan to get us back to where we fully fund K-12,” says Eastin.

As a young community college teacher in southern California in the 1970s, who became a state legislator and state schools superintendent, Eastin also taught youths at a juvenile detention facility – an experience that helped drive her views of public education in California, which spends far more to incarcerate young people than to educate them.

“It was an excellent experience for determining policy,” she mused. “The state Constitution doesn’t say that the first priority is incarceration. It says the first priority is education.”
—
Ed’s Note: Sigrid Bathen is a longtime education writer who teaches journalism at California State University, Sacramento.

Tough Nut to Crack

April 1, 2013 / Sigrid Bathen

Tough Nut to Crack

Almonds bust then boom in China

Richard Waycott says there are no silver bullets in the remarkable double-digit growth of California almond exports to China but rather a carefully honed strategy built on introducing almonds to a “pre-existing snacking culture.”

Although almonds are grown “on a very small scale in far, far western China,” according to Waycott, the CEO of California’s Almond Board, almonds were virtually unknown in China until introduced there by savvy California marketers in the past 10 to 20 years.

According to estimates from the Modesto-based Almond Board, a quasi-government, marketing organization representing almond growers throughout California, 1.5 billion pounds of almonds will be exported from California in the 2012-2013 growing year — more than twice the amount exported in 2005-2006. The top markets were mainland China and Hong Kong, which imported 236 million pounds of the nut in 2011-2012.

As “prolific messaging” about the nutritional and taste benefits of almonds converged with rapidly expanding Chinese affluence, Waycott and others in the almond trade say a marketing marvel was born. “Those two driving forces aligned,” Waycott says, “and that has contributed to the very significant double-digit growth.”

The same message and methodology are now being applied to other potential global markets, such as India and Russia. Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico and Saudi Arabia are part of future marketing plans. According to year-end Almond Board statistics for 2012, Spain was second in almond exports from California, followed by India, Germany, United Arab Emirates, Japan, Turkey, Canada, Italy and South Korea.

“I don’t think the almond industry has any secrets or silver bullets,” Waycott says. “It’s not rocket science. It’s hard work, dedication to a vision, funding that vision and finding the best human talent to execute that plan.” He predicts that future growth rates, as almond exports are expanded into other emerging global markets, “could easily be 9 percent a year.”

The nutritional benefits of eating almonds play a big role in the marketing strategy. In India, almonds are regarded as “brain food,” and American almond processors who do frequent business with emerging global markets tell the tale of Indian parents placing seven almonds in a glass of water before a child goes to bed, allowing easy removal of the skin of the nuts in the morning. Almond consumption reportedly jumps during exam times.

CHINA TRADE ‘GREAT BOON’ TO CALIFORNIA

Like many modern almond growers and “handlers” (companies processing California’s vast almond crop), Skip Hubbard, president of the venerable Chico Nut Co., regularly travels to China.

Hubbard, a lifelong Chico resident, has been in the almond business for nearly 50 years, beginning when Chico and the surrounding North Valley were the hub of almond growing, harvesting and production.

“The trade with China has been fantastic for the almond business,” he says. “And it will continue to grow as the [Chinese] middle class grows. It has been a great boon to California growers.”

An independent processor that grows many of its own almonds on ranches in the nearby Colusa County community of Williams, Chico Nut also buys almonds from independent growers, both large and small. Producing only almonds, avoiding allergens and cross-contamination, the Chico Nut facility also sells “ingredient” nuts to the large confectionary market — Hershey, Mars, Nestle, Kraft — which in turn produces candy, energy bars and other food products.

Other almond ranchers band together in cooperatives like the century-old Sacramento-based Blue Diamond Almonds, which posted record sales revenues of more than $1 billion for the 2011-2012 growing year. “We’re just scratching the surface [in China],” says Warren Cohen, director of worldwide sales for the Global Ingredients Division of Blue Diamond and a 25-year veteran of the cooperative. “There is still huge potential.”

As the global export trade has exploded, irrigation has made almond ranching viable well beyond Chico to drier (and less frosty) San Joaquin, Fresno and Kern Counties. In part to meet that expansion, Blue Diamond will soon open a major processing facility in Turlock.

As almond ranching expands, growers and handlers alike caution that adequate water is critical to success. “There is always lots of worry about high-investment crops like almonds,” says Dr. Daniel Sumner, a professor of agricultural and resource economics at the UC Davis. “If you don’t get enough water to keep your trees alive, you lose 15 years of investment.”

While pointing to “very clear” data on California climate patterns that suggest higher temperatures and less rain and snow, Sumner emphasizes, “California has solidified its position as the dominant almond producer and exporter in the world.” Almonds are currently the Golden State’s No. 1 food export.

He credits Almond Board officials for “not putting all of their money into the marketing basket,” but also for focusing on government relations, food safety and the nutritional benefits of almonds. “They’re always on the ground with information that almonds are good for you,” he says.

FROM SMALL, FAMILY FARMING TO TOP GLOBAL EXPORT

John Chambers views the meteoric rise of California almond exports to China with the perspective of a veteran rancher with deep knowledge of the history of almonds in California. He notes the introduction of almonds to California from native Mediterranean climates, the presence of almonds in ancient Egyptian tombs, the demanding nature of the almond crop, with its specific climate, planting and harvesting requirements.

He marvels at the pace of the 21st century Chinese export trade and the vast changes in how almonds are grown, harvested and processed throughout California.

“Until recently, Europe was our biggest market,” says Chambers, who worked in various aspects of the almond processing business in the Chico area for decades and now manages the historic Patrick Ranch Museum south of Chico. “Then Japan became economically viable and consumed large quantities of almonds. Now China is a huge market.”

A far cry from when he and his father and brothers harvested their family’s almond crop by hand, often on horseback. “It was a lot of work,” he recalls, “and you could lose your crop with one good frost.”

Soot-blackening, diesel-fueled “smudge pots” were used well into the mid-20th century to warm the orchards (replaced by wind turbines and misting irrigation), and high-school boys who worked on the ranches were not expected to be on time for school during harvest time. “The kids who had been working in the harvest, climbing the trees,” Chambers says, “they were ready to play football.”

Donated to the Chico Museum by Hester Grimm Patrick in 2001 and administered by the Far West Heritage Association, the Patrick Ranch Museum complex chronicles the agricultural history of the area and includes the imposing 1877 brick family farmhouse and the surrounding 28 acres — a small portion of the original ranch, where almonds were first introduced in the late 1800s.

While his family sold its 50-acre ranch years ago, the 69-year-old Chambers is still an almond rancher at heart. He pauses on a cold February day and gazes out at the 200-year-old oaks on the historic property, ringed by almond trees from the original ranch. The nearby foothills have a light dusting of snow from a recent storm, and he’s worried about the weather, especially the harsh north wind and the likelihood of frost — both potentially damaging to almond trees as they begin to bloom.

“Looks like the almonds are going to be blooming in a couple of weeks,” he says.

Mar 31, 2013 By Sigrid Bathen

The MBA is Not Dead

August 1, 2012 / Sigrid Bathen

Demand has ebbed and flowed but remains on high tide

When Laurie Grimsman graduated in June from the Graduate School of Management at UC Davis, she was 51 and a self-proclaimed “age outlier.”

“It took me a while to get my bachelor’s degree (in accounting from Brigham Young University in 1988) because I got married and had three children,” she says. “I definitely have some gaps in my résumé.” She worked for five years as an accountant with several area firms and 10 years with Sutter Health, but had been out of the workforce for seven years when she sought her master’s degree in business administration.

“When my last child left, I knew I wanted to go back to work,” she says. “But I wanted to get my skills back up to speed — and build my confidence.”

Echoing the views of other Capital Region MBA grads, she says the business administration program did all that and more. “It gave me a much more global perspective,” she says. “I got multiple (job) offers, and I don’t think my age mattered at all.” She now works at Intel.

Her story highlights the diverse career and life stories of MBA grads — as well as the enduring value of a graduate degree periodically lampooned in national news media as duplicative or even obsolete. But local MBA students, business school administrators, professional groups and employers, and a growing volume of recent news accounts in major media such as Forbes and the Wall Street Journal, paint a much more nuanced and somewhat rosier picture.

“When the economy tanked in 2008, we initially saw a 50 percent jump in applications,” says Dr. Sanjay Varshney, dean of Sacramento State’s College of Business Administration. The curriculum there includes a 15-month, “self-supported” executive MBA costing about $36,300, not including books, fees or room and board. Annual tuition for the standard, state-supported MBA is $10,000 and generally takes two and a half years to complete.

“As the economy became more protracted, we saw a 50 percent decline (in applications),” he says. “Slowly, we have seen the applications coming back to normal levels.”

Varshney describes the analytical skills developed in MBA programs as “very marketable and recession-resistant.” At the same time, graduate business programs and employers are increasingly selective, with stiffer admission requirements and tougher competition for jobs. As a four-year degree becomes a “threshold” requirement for many positions, he says, “The MBA program is becoming more critical, and the need for getting an MBA is getting even higher.”

Many MBA candidates are working adults who plan to stay with their current employers, and some employers will help foot the bill, although others have been forced to scale back on tuition reimbursement programs in the economic downturn.

At the University of the Pacific Eberhardt School of Business in Stockton, where tuition for the 16-month MBA program costs nearly $60,000, Dean Lewis Gale says enrollment was sharply affected when financially strapped businesses “began to pull back on reimbursement for younger employees” to attend graduate school. “But we’re starting to see much better data on the horizon,” he says with more than 200 applications for fall 2012, a huge jump from 58 last fall.

Employers and business groups say competition for MBA-level jobs is stiff. “I still believe there is high value to having a master’s in business administration,” says Larry Dicke, chief financial officer and executive vice-president of the California Chamber of Commerce. “It demonstrates to me that this person has upper-management potential. There are more hiring opportunities because of that background … and you do get paid more.”

He advises people contemplating an MBA who may feel stymied professionally: “When the ceiling is closed … go get the MBA and do a part-time program.”

Roger Niello, former state legislator and county supervisor and now president and CEO of the Sacramento Metro Chamber, agrees.

“General economic conditions are such that everybody is cutting back,” Niello says. “Fewer jobs are available, and companies are significantly more challenged. … But I don’t think that in any way compromises the value of the degree.”

Among employers who continue to recruit and hire MBA students and grads from area business schools, state retirement system CalPERS must follow stringent civil-service guidelines. Salaries may be somewhat lower than in the private sector, but such positions include excellent benefits and a high degree of job security.

Did You Know? Nearly two-thirds of community college students who transfer to the University of California complete a bachelor’s degree within three years — a rate comparable to “native” UC students, those who are eligible and enter as freshmen.

As with other government and nonprofit positions, a portion of federal student loan debt also can be forgiven under certain conditions after 10 years of repayment.

As an independent pension fund, the agency is somewhat insulated from political pressures, although it has taken major media hits in recent years over various pension fund scandals and widespread concern about public pensions.

“Hiring hasn’t stopped, but it hasn’t been aggressive or robust,” says PERS spokesman Brad Pacheco.

Colin Crane, 31, who was initially hired more than five years ago as a paid, part-time MBA graduate intern from UC Davis (the typical path to landing a permanent, full-time job as an investment officer), specializes in private equities and has risen rapidly up through the ranks.

“It’s important to have the skills to work with private-equity managers and fit with the team,” Crane says. Applicants who pass the civil service test and are invited for interviews must also master a timed test of their ability to interpret complex financial tasks and errors using Microsoft Excel spreadsheets. “It’s a very specific skill” and key to job productivity, Crane says.

MBA programs in the Sacramento area all have career counseling programs and alumni groups, and students serve internships with employers who are actively cultivated and recruited.

“We actually got through the recession fairly well, and a lot of that has to do with our relationship with employers,” says Christine Dito, senior director of career services for the UC Davis Graduate School of Management. “When companies nationwide started cutting back, it didn’t impact us as much as other schools (because) we’re involved with employers from the outset.”

UC Davis offers business or MBA graduate programs on campus as well as at satellite centers in Sacramento and San Ramon. Tuition ranges from at least $70,000 for the two-year, on-campus program to more than $96,000 for San Ramon center students, who receive catered meals and books as part of the cost.

Many grads say the ties they forge in their graduate programs are carried into the workplace.

“Having the business degree means that I’m more efficient and entrepreneurial in how I approach my job,” says Mary Beth Barber, media consultant and communications director for the California Arts Council.

Armed with a creative writing degree from the University of Michigan, she completed her MBA last year at Drexel University, which opened its Sacramento program aimed at working adults in 2009. Current tuition for the entire two-year Drexel MBA is $58,000.

Like many grads, Barber, 43, remains close to her Drexel classmates and praises the networking benefits of the degree.

“There were a lot of group projects, and the teamwork was incredibly important,” she says. “I thought maybe my diverse career path would be a liability, but they were looking for creative minds, and it made the discussions very interesting because you had this mix of people.”

Sandra Kirschenmann, director of Drexel’s Sacramento Center for Graduate Studies, says the program encourages the teamwork critical to business success.

“Our focus is on the practical nature of work,” she says. “I really feel this is the formula for higher education going forward.”

The New Laws of Hiring

July 1, 2012 / Sigrid Bathen

In a tight market, law students need professional and personal skills

John O’Malley is the recruiting partner at Sacramento’s largest law firm, Downey Brand, which was founded nearly a century ago and employs more than 120 lawyers in five regional offices, 103 of them in Sacramento. As at many law firms, there was belt tightening during the recession, but Downey Brand withstood the financial challenge better than many, including several that sharply downsized or dissolved altogether.

“Overall, the firm has done surprisingly well, given the economy,” says O’Malley, crediting Downey Brand’s diverse practice. “We have continued to hold numbers and grow to some extent.”

Historically, the firm has hired eight to 10 summer associates annually, the entry-level positions for students between their second and third years of law school. But those positions have been a major casualty of the downturn. Last year, the firm hired seven, this year six.

O’Malley, 44, a family law attorney who also serves on the UC Davis School of Law alumni board, says he looks for certain qualities in a new hire: “Being a strong writer is critical. Having some work history is certainly desired. Law firms are businesses, and we’re really looking for people who we can put in front of a client, who presents maturely, who ultimately can be a partner.”

Summer associates typically only spend one session with their firm, though exceptional students are sometimes asked to return. Such was the case for Harveen Gill, 22, who is now entering her third year of law school at UC Davis. Gill says that when she arrived at Downey, she strived to be an amiable worker who could endure professional criticism without becoming defensive. In the application process, Gill focused her personal statement on her family roots and why she wished to start a career in the region.

“I come from a large family of farmers,” she says. “I talked about growing up in the agriculture community and going to law school with the desire to do law in agriculture or agriculture business…That is the reason I would like to stay in the Sacramento region.”

But associates can’t get by on passion alone. Increasingly, many local lawyers say hiring is based on the practical legal experience students have gained during law school — law clinics, moot court, law reviews — an emphasis reflected in a recent decision by the State Bar of California to examine whether to impose a practical skills requirement for bar admission.

“Law firms are looking for students who have been in a clinic, represented clients in a courtroom under the supervision of an attorney, have been in trial competitions,” O’Malley says. “Those (factors) carry more weight than before.” And, as the population becomes more diverse, ethnic diversity is increasingly important. As law firms have adjusted to recessionary times, they also have had to adjust to new technology and to the cost concerns of clients, especially in the corporate world.

“Things have become so mechanized, and there is so much information on the Internet,” says Iris Yang, a partner in the Sacramento office of Best Best & Krieger, a national firm with more than 200 attorneys in eight California offices and Washington, D.C. “You can do things more efficiently, (but) that also creates a greater expectation on the part of clients. Everybody is always checking their emails and expecting prompt responses. Clients are getting more cost-conscious, and they’re asking for different types of billing arrangements.”

A former Sacramento Bee reporter who graduated from the UC Davis law school in 1982, Yang, 61, started her legal career as a summer associate and became a partner at the venerable Sacramento law firm of McDonough Holland & Allen, which had been one of Sacramento’s largest law firms before shuttering in 2010. “There were plenty of jobs when I graduated,” she says. “Now, that is not the case.”

“They ought to think carefully about why they want to go to law school. For some people, it’s just more school — they don’t really know why. … get some experience for a couple of years. See what the real world is like.”
IRIS YANG, PARTNER, BEST BEST & KRIEGER

Her son David Gibson, a 2010 graduate of Tulane University Law School in New Orleans, “was incredibly lucky and found a job (with a San Francisco firm) in a couple of months. But he was very stressed out for two to three months, working for free, serving internships.”

Her advice for today’s graduates? “They ought to think carefully about why they want to go to law school. For some people, it’s just more school — they don’t really know why.” She advises them to “get some experience for a couple of years. See what the real world is like.”

Job placement and help with school loans have become major challenges for law schools as the nature of law practice changes and the job market remains tight. At UC Davis, an active career center staff works to prepare students for interviews and jobs. “A lot of what I do is helping students prepare for their interviews,” says Craig Compton, assistant dean for career services at the UC Davis School of Law.

As firms have reduced hiring, Compton says larger firms — hard hit by the recession and sometimes forced to rescind job offers — have become “very conservative” in their hiring. “They don’t want to go back to where they have to rescind offers.” The result for law schools, he says, “is more outreach to small and mid-size firms to increase the number of employers who will hire students and give them experience.”

Compton says he encourages alumni and other contacts to hire graduates on a trial period while they await bar results. “Try them out on an hourly basis,” he says, “not as an expectation of permanent hire, but a paid tryout. Bill them out at a modest rate. Re-evaluate when they receive bar results.

“In a good percentage, the law firm really likes them,” he says. “If for whatever reason it doesn’t work out — not a good fit, work product — that law student has real experience on their resume that they can sell to another employer.”

Slowly and with abundant caution, Compton and other law school administrators and law firms see the Capital Region’s job market improving, including signs of tepid hiring in some sectors of government.

“The market for the class of 2013 is better than the previous two years,” says Compton, and more employers are recruiting on campus. Among large law firms, he says, “The numbers are starting to grow again.”

Law School Blues

July 1, 2012 / Sigrid Bathen

Heavy debt plus no jobs plague grads and deter applicants

Like so many recent law school graduates, Seth Benkle searched vainly for a job after graduating from the University of the Pacific McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento in 2010, increasingly stressed about his $160,000 in student loans, interest accruing.

“I pay what I can,” Benkle says. “In the meantime, it’s just growing and growing.”

Benkle, 29, was raised in Roseville, graduated from Oakmont High School and carefully prepared for a legal career, building his resume after earning a bachelor’s degree in history from the University of California, Irvine.

“I never planned to be a litigator,” he says. “I always planned to have a career in public policy.”

For two years before law school, he worked as a clerk in the San Francisco office of Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe. During law school, he held several government internships and jobs, including a paid summer associate’s position in the state Legislative Counsel’s office. Along the way, he received awards and scholarships, was on the dean’s list at both UC Irvine and McGeorge, wrote about legislative issues for the McGeorge Law Review and served as president of the school’s Governmental Affairs Student Association.

He finally found work last year in San Francisco as a temporary contract attorney for agencies that review the often mind-numbing volumes of paper and online documents involved in legal cases.
“It pays pretty well, but it’s basically legal temp work,” Benkle says. “I may work for six months and be off for three weeks. I just started a job that will last eight days.”

He also volunteers in the San Francisco Bar Association’s legal assistance program for low-income residents. And he feels fortunate to have health insurance through San Francisco’s public health insurance program.

His experience is typical of thousands of recent graduates across the country who were in law school during the recession and upon passing the bar exam learned that a law degree no longer guarantees a well-paid, secure job — much less the ability to pay off massive school loans. While there are some programs to trim school loan debt for lawyers who work in public service or for nonprofits, both sectors have been hard hit by the economic downturn in the Sacramento region. And, student loans cannot be discharged in bankruptcy.

“I couldn’t find work in Sacramento at all, even law clerking,” Benkle says. “I like to think I question the things that I do, not follow blindly. I thought I’d be able to pay these (student loans) off and be a lawyer. But that’s not the reality.”

Benkle takes most of the blame for not recognizing growing signs of trouble before and during the recession, but he also questions why law schools continued to enroll students and promise huge sums of financial aid.

A key measure of the rocky legal job market has been the sharp decline in the number of students taking the Law School Admission Test (LSAT). There was a 16.2 percent drop in the number of LSATs administered by the Law School Admission Council (LSAC) in the 2011-2012 academic year, which followed a 9.6 percent decline in the 2010-2011 academic year. Those declines came after a 13.3 percent increase in 2009-2010 and a 9.6 percent hike in 2008-2009, as students returned to school, seeking more “secure” careers at the height of the recession.

Now, many law schools across the country are cutting enrollment. LSAC figures from early May 2012 (when an estimated 95 percent of applications nationwide had been reported) show a 14.6 percent decline in applications to American Bar Association-accredited law schools nationwide, continuing a downward trend from fall 2011 when applications were down 10.7 percent.

Administrators at the prestigious UC Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco announced in May that 20 percent fewer students would be admitted in the fall, and several staff positions were eliminated.

“The critics of legal education are right,” said Hastings Chancellor Frank Wu in a dramatic announcement that made national headlines. “There are too many law schools, and there are too many law students and we need to do something about that.”

A ‘tectonic shift’ in the market for lawyers
For young law school graduates who believed a law degree meant a secure, well-paying job, the reality has been particularly disconcerting. Many graduates are expressing public anger in articles and blogs — and even lawsuits — excoriating what they see as an entrenched system in which high student debt was encouraged, or at least not discouraged, by a law school culture fueled by easy credit and empty assurances. And, while top-rated law schools report high levels of full-time student employment after graduation, many others suggest realities characterized by longer job searches and part-time or temporary employment.

“It’s a tough market for law schools generally,” says Kevin R. Johnson, dean of the UC Davis School of Law, where annual tuition has increased to more than $46,000 and is climbing as a result of general economic malaise and state budget cuts. “The job market is rough, and prospective students are unclear (about) what will happen. I don’t think we’re going to return to the law firm heyday when hiring $160,000 associates was their way of doing business.”

Johnson says UC Davis does not plan to cut its law school admissions and has long offered numerous grants and scholarships to help defray student loans. And, like many law schools, it has stepped up internship and job-placement services to current students through an active career-
services center. It also increased outreach efforts — particularly in underserved communities with poor representation among law students, mainly African Americans and Latinos — to educate undergraduates about the realities of law school.

“I thought I’d be able to pay these (student loans) off and be a lawyer. But that’s not the reality.”
SETH BENKLE, GRADUATE, UNIVERSITY OF THE PACIFIC MCGEORGE SCHOOL OF LAW

At McGeorge, administrators are sharply scaling back admissions in response to the sluggish, rapidly changing job market for lawyers. Last fall’s first-year, daytime class of 181 students was 100 students smaller than the first-year, day class of fall 2010 and the smallest since 1969. McGeorge’s law tuition is more than $41,000 annually (excluding books, housing and other fees), and the school offers evening classes as well as its highly regarded programs in international law and clinical experience.

McGeorge Dean Elizabeth Rindskopf Parker, who is retiring this summer after 10 years in the position, made minority recruitment a priority and says law schools must respond to “a tectonic shift in the market” for legal services.

“This is a market that since the early ’70s has done nothing but increase, paralleling to some extent what we saw in housing,” she says. “Nationally, many law schools have simply taken advantage of what seemed to be irrevocable growth, with a sizable growth in the number of law schools and hence the available seats.”

“We’ve long been too large for the market we serve,” she says of McGeorge. “We should be smaller. We don’t want to bring students in who can’t find jobs.”

Always an anomaly of sorts among the region’s law schools, Lincoln Law School in east Sacramento has long served a specific niche of working adults who, for various reasons, want to earn a law degree. Enrollment has remained consistent in recent years, from 220 to 260 students (230 currently), and tuition runs about $10,000 annually. Established in 1969 and accredited by the California State Bar but not the American Bar Association, Lincoln offers classes taught by working attorneys. Graduates include many local judges as well as Sacramento County District Attorney Jan Scully and Sheriff Scott Jones. The school maintains a job bank, stays in touch with its alumni and many students “pay as they go,” often graduating with no school loan debt, says longtime Registrar Angelia Harlow. “I don’t know of many who can’t find jobs,” she adds.

Current law students cautiously optimistic
Though many recent law school graduates struggle to find legal jobs, current students express cautious optimism about the future as law firms slowly begin to expand what had been a drastically curtailed pool of summer and post-graduation hiring.

Heather Cantua, 23, who completed her second year at UC Davis law school in May and is in the top third of her class, expects to emerge with “only” $50,000 in student loan debt when she graduates next year — the result of a UC Davis program in which a portion of law student tuition is returned to students in the form of need-based grants. She also works as a paid research assistant for one of her law professors and has been active in the school’s King Hall Women’s Law Association.

A UC Davis undergraduate from Livermore who went directly to law school after earning her Bachelor’s in sociology, Cantua had no student loans as an undergraduate. Her working-class parents, who are not college graduates and have experienced layoffs and other economic setbacks during the recession, paid the tuition for their only child.

“My mom works in a community college, and education has always been important,” Cantua says. “They had planned for it, put a lot of emphasis on it.”

This summer, she will work as a paid summer associate at Reed Smith in San Francisco at a time when many law firms have scaled back — or even rescinded — paid summer associate offers, which historically have been the path to permanent employment for law school students and graduates.

Other law students have taken unpaid internships to gain legal experience. Colin Roberts, 25, who expects to graduate from McGeorge in the top third of his class in December, searched unsuccessfully for a paid summer position in Sacramento.

“It was ultra-competitive,” he says. “Firms that traditionally hire several students over the summer may be hiring one or none.”

Roberts says he feels fortunate to have landed an unpaid summer internship as a law clerk at the California Department of Water Resources. President of the Governmental Affairs Student Association at McGeorge, he has long planned a public-policy career, double majoring in political studies and peace and conflict studies at Pitzer College, one of the Claremont Colleges in Southern California, and serving in a peer mediation program at his Manhattan Beach high school.

“That got me interested in alternative dispute resolution,” he says. “And I decided mediation was something I wanted to pursue as a career.” In college, he took a course in water policy and chose McGeorge for its environmental law, conflict resolution and public-policy programs.

Despite high student loan debt estimated at about $150,000, Roberts says he has no regrets about his decision.

“Anything I think I would be happy doing would require a graduate degree. And the (juris doctorate) is one of the most flexible,” he says. “But I will say that a lot of law students don’t know what they’re getting into. Taking out $150,000 in loans with interest, I admit I’m scared that I will have that much debt hanging over me.”

Roberts is hopeful, however, that the public-policy and government job market for lawyers — once a secure career choice in the capital — will improve and that national concern over crippling student loan debt will result in more programs to forgive and/or reduce that debt.

His hopes were recently buoyed when his girlfriend, who graduated at the top of her McGeorge class, started a job with a government consulting firm in Sacramento after a year of searching.

For Kelly Bradfield, 27, her first year of law school at UC Davis ended a few days early, when she rescheduled a final exam to deliver her first child. She graduated from UC Berkeley with an English degree in 2007 and landed a job at the UC Center in downtown Sacramento the same year, working as a policy analyst and legislative liaison for the center, which provides an intensive internship and seminar program for public-policy and journalism students from UC schools throughout the state. The highly regarded program was nearly eliminated during massive budget cuts in 2009. The program survived, but several positions, including Bradfield’s, were cut.

Undeterred, she found a job as volunteer and development coordinator for the nonprofit Children’s Receiving Home of Sacramento, which provides emergency housing and services to abused and neglected children. Always focused on a public-policy career, she is firm in her career choices. “I know I want to work in Sacramento in public policy,” she says. “I’m familiar with the terrain.”

She serves on the board of the King Hall Women’s Law Association and was impressed by the support for new mothers in the law school. “They let me rearrange my finals, and there is a babysitting cooperative on campus, which is free, staffed by volunteers who watch the kids when students are in class,” she says.

Her husband, Bryant Burmich, is a manager with the California State Teachers Retirement System in Sacramento. “We are really blessed with his gainful employment during this unstable employment time, and I was able to take the summer off,” she says.

As for the high cost of law school, she says, “I think I’ll be really lucky if I end up with $100,000 (in debt). … I can’t believe I just said that.”

The Accidental Landlord

April 1, 2012 / Sigrid Bathen

The Accidental Landlord

More homeowners are turning to the rental market for mercy

Brian O’Hearn is an accidental landlord.

Like more and more homeowners caught in the descending mortgage spiral, O’Hearn and his wife, Juliet Williams, faced tough choices. Married in June, they owned his house in Folsom and her Sacramento condo — and both wanted to live in midtown.

Their solution? Find reliable renters for both homes and rent a restored 1920s bungalow in the thriving midtown area.

O’Hearn, an information technology manager in Folsom, bought his three-bedroom, two-and-a-half bath Folsom home in 2002 for $262,000. Divorced, with shared custody of his son, then 9, he watched his home’s value rapidly increase.

“I basically did a complete remodel,” hiring a designer and subcontractors for some work and doing much of it himself, he says. He refinanced the following year at a lower interest rate, paying off a second mortgage. In 2004, at the height of the bubble, his house was worth nearly double its purchase price.

“I thought I should just sell,” O’Hearn recalls, “but I talked myself out of it because my son was still in school.”

Fast forward to 2010: O’Hearn, 46, and Williams, 39 and a journalist, were living in his Folsom home, and she was renting out her $190,000 Sierra Oaks condo, which she purchased in 2007. O’Hearn had the easy commute, since he worked in Folsom, but Williams hated the daily, traffic-clogged drive to her office near the Capitol.

Something had to give, so they moved to midtown.

“There is a little bit of added expense,” O’Hearn says, “but we’re loving the life.”

Their 1,200-square-foot, three-bedroom, two-bathroom bungalow is close to restaurants, shopping, nightlife and a short distance from Williams’ office. O’Hearn has the longer commute, from midtown to Folsom, but generally without the traffic crunch.

Myriad reasons — marriage, divorce, job changes, financial pressure, unemployment, illness — are behind the increase in “accidental” landlords who opt to rent out their homes rather than sell in a chronically depressed and unpredictable market. Some turn to property managers to handle the details.

Others, such as O’Hearn, handle the often-complex demands of property management, including advertising, screening renters, maintenance, emergency repairs, disputes with neighbors and other issues.

“I’m pretty handy,” says O’Hearn, “and we’ve saved money for unexpected emergencies. Since we wanted to move, this was really the only way we could do it, given the market.”

With no previous experience as landlords, they were careful to thoroughly research — and hopefully avoid — its many variables and pitfalls. Williams checked the requirements of rentals and leases. They advertised on Craigslist for renters, who were required to complete an application and submit references from former landlords and credit reports.

“We’ve been lucky to have good, stable renters,” says O’Hearn, emphasizing the importance of finding responsible tenants, both for the care of the home and the comfort of neighbors.

Like many homeowners, O’Hearn watched helplessly as the value of his house in Folsom tumbled, finally appearing to stabilize around the 2002 purchase price. He was also able to refinance in August to a 20-year loan with a lower interest rate. The current mortgage is $2,000 a month, with taxes and insurance, and is nearly offset by the $1,995 rent. Not so with the condo, which rents for just $1,100 — $300 a month less than it costs — and is nearly $50,000 underwater.

Ideally, O’Hearn says, he and Williams “would rather own the house we’re living in. But under the circumstances, it worked out in order to do what we wanted to do.” At the same time, he says, “I can understand why there are a lot of people now who just want to get out from under the burden” of owning a home that has substantially lost value, and often is worth far less than what is owed.

“It’s not underwater until I sell it,” he says. “We have very, very good credit. If there is a rebound and we have successfully rented both of these places, we still have skin in the game, as opposed to walking away.”

•••

Randy Burden, 62, has bought, remodeled and sold Capital Region homes for more than three decades. The son of a builder, he grew up in Sacramento, graduated from Sacramento State and is skilled in construction, interior design and landscaping. He and his partner, Larry Barnes, 54, enjoy working on distressed properties — all intended as primary residences, not rentals — and making them shine.

Early in their 17-year relationship, they built a house on rural property Barnes owned near Placerville but found the long commute on a narrow two-lane road too treacherous for comfort. So they moved to Gold River, where they bought, renovated and sold several homes, almost always profitably.

Occasionally they have temporarily become landlords as well. In 1995, Burden rented out his first home, purchased in the 1980s in Sacramento’s Pocket area. He accurately predicted the value would continue to appreciate, and he sold it several years later. More recently, he and Barnes became accidental landlords, stuck with substantial mortgages on two homes when one failed to sell.

“We could handle five or six months (with two mortgages),” says Burden, a technology manager at the state Department of Motor Vehicles. “But if it extended into seven, eight or nine months, no. We had already lost so much.”

They purchased their “dream home” in 2005 for $519,000. It was a foreclosure in poor condition, on the market for 18 months. “People would walk in and walk right back out,” Burden says. Just the kind of challenge Burden and Barnes relished. “We thought, ‘What a cool house; we could make this beautiful.’ We completely renovated it back to its beautiful bones. None of these homes were ever [purchased and renovated] with the intention of leaving them. It just turned out that way.”

As they began planning for Burden’s retirement, however, they took stock of the sharply dropping real estate market and decided to sell. “We had put a lot of money into it” — $280,000 on top of the purchase price — “when the market started taking a southward turn,” Burden says. “It became clear we would get less and less the longer we waited.”

They bought a foreclosed, four-bedroom home in May in a gated Gold River community with a clubhouse, tennis courts, pool and spa and put the dream home on the market. Several months passed without a sale, so they lowered the price. Finally, they decided it was time for a short-term lessee.

“I had been a landlord before, with my house in the Pocket, and it worked out well,” Burden recalls.

They considered using professional rental agencies but decided, “We’re savvy enough to do this.” They listed online with a Gold River website and on Craigslist, looking for well-qualified renters. They did reference and credit checks and made it clear to prospective tenants that the lease would be short-term, as they planned to move in once their other house sold, which it did in December for $545,000.

In March their renter’s lease will be up, and they will finally be able to move into their new home, where they have already made major improvements.

“We were very fortunate to have made profits on all of our homes,” he added, “except the last one, which was very painful.”

•••

Michael and Melanie Vance, both 66, are experienced Sacramento homeowners and residential real estate investors who have been buying, renting and selling properties in the Sacramento area since 1976. Both retired high school teachers and principals, they made substantial profits on two family homes they bought and sold, including their first home in Carmichael, which they bought in 1974 for $36,000, selling it for $108,000 six years later.

They used the profit to buy a two-story brick home in the emerging, upscale American River Canyon neighborhood of north Folsom, where they lived for 25 years. They sold the Folsom house for more than $700,000 just before the real estate market crashed, and they bought their current home in Gold River.

All the while, they were also buying “starter-level houses and duplexes” in the Sacramento area as investments for their eventual retirement. Their worst experience involved a Folsom fourplex, which they sold in the late 1980s. “It was a constant worry, with tenants in and out,” Mike says. “The neighbors were complaining that some tenants were dealing drugs, and one tenant had a husband in prison, many children and many boyfriends.”

They did not repeat the experience, sticking to single-family homes and duplexes in the years before and since. “We’ve been through very slow inflationary times, through the ’80s, but we had enough rent coming in that it was paying the mortgages, paying most of the expenses,” Mike says. “Our aim was that appreciation would be where we made the money, not through rents. That’s not true anymore.”

Currently the owners of eight rental properties, three with partners, the couple manages the properties themselves and have suffered some losses in the real estate meltdown, particularly on rentals purchased “at the top of the market.” They bought a Land Park duplex for $537,000 in 2005 with profits from an Orangevale home they sold the same year for $355,000 — more than twice the purchase price. It’s now worth $100,000. “We got out just in time,” says Vance. They have since refinanced the Land Park duplex, recently appraised at $390,000.

“Melanie and I have worked to keep our rentals at a level where we could feel good about living in them,” added Vance, who is a licensed real estate agent as well as an investor. “Not every [investor or landlord] has that as part of [his or her] business model.” As for the impact of more rentals on neighborhoods as a result of more properties being rented, Vance said, “Lots of rentals in a neighborhood almost always leads to lower desirability for owner/occupants. Investors who are absent or are trying to wring profits out of the houses just don’t maintain their properties as well. Higher-end neighborhoods seem to recover better as far as appearances and desirability because they return to a more normal owner/occupant level as the market recovers. Part of that is also pride of ownership.”

Vance’s advice to inexperienced landlords: “If they’re going to manage it themselves, they need to be close by. I keep home warranties on each unit, which many people won’t do. That allows me to plan ahead.” And, while he does many repairs himself, he keeps a list of reliable contractors and handymen.

Predicting that it will be “10 years before we get out of this mire,” he is nonetheless optimistic. “If we found what we think is a great buy now, we would buy it.”

Mar 31, 2012 By Sigrid Bathen

Property Management 101

April 1, 2012 / Sigrid Bathen

Property Management 101

The basics of landlording

Ted White has worked in residential property management in the Sacramento area for more than three decades. He gloried in the boom times and helped homeowners and investors slog through the murky waters of the ongoing real estate meltdown in one of the hardest-hit housing markets in the nation.

“The strange thing about property management is that it tends to do well in a downturn,” says White, president of Sacramento Delta Property Management. “Our industry began during the Depression.”

With a glut of foreclosures in the Sacramento housing market, White says he’s seen all manner of challenges for homeowners renting out a property they might otherwise prefer to sell.

“There is a pretty big group of people in that category and always has been to some extent,” he says. In today’s market, “they are not living in the home themselves or are moving out of the area and can’t sell it for what they purchased it for.” Frequently, they are dealing with an underwater mortgage.

And there are those who “have rented to a friend or co-worker and didn’t really screen the tenants, and ended up having to evict. That’s when they contact us.”

While foreclosures “used to be the kiss of death” on a rental application, White says, “we now accept people who have a foreclosure on their credit report as tenants. We look at it as one item in the rest of their credit reports. Our job is to look closely at their history.

They should be able to pay for the property, with income that is three times the rent. They need a mostly good credit report (and) rental references.” They may have owned a home sold in a short sale, which White says is increasingly common in tenant applications.

White says property managers generally charge either a flat monthly fee or a percentage of rent collected to handle the various details of renting and maintaining a property. Separate from the management fee, he adds, is a rental fee that ranges from about half to all of one month’s rent. “It’s rare, but we’ve seen families stay in one place for 15 years or longer,” he says.

Major repairs can be a sticky issue with some owners, White says. “Homes and everything in the homes have a finite life,” he says. “They’ll say, ‘Well, it worked fine when I lived there.’ Yes it did, but it’s come to the end of its life. It’s important to have some money set aside (for repairs). You have to think about the investment if you expect to keep the rent coming.”

And, while property managers will “work with clients,” White says, “There is a threshold. If we get to the point of habitability issues, we will have to terminate the contract.”

He says the proverbial “tenants from hell” are, mercifully, “a small percentage” of renters, especially if they have been thoroughly screened by management firms. “By and large, the residents want to cooperate. They want us to be responsive, and they want things to be working. It can be a challenge if the owner doesn’t think the (repair) requests are serious enough. We have to provide good customer service to the renters, and we want them happy.”

Dealing with complaints “and comments” from neighbors presents other challenges, White says. “Some are reasonable, some are not.” One person’s perception of loud music may be another’s musical enjoyment, and noise is more often an issue in multifamily rentals. “Our philosophy is that we want the neighbors to know who is managing the property. We want to be sure they have numbers to call.”

Mar 31, 2012 By Sigrid Bathen

Changes in mental health care system spur new optimism

August 18, 2011 / Sigrid Bathen

capweeklyaug2011

Changes in mental health care system spur new optimism

by SIGRID BATHEN

Massive changes in how mental health care is delivered to Californians – including abolishing or restructuring the two state departments responsible for mental health and substance-abuse programs – are being closely watched by care providers and advocacy groups.

They say they are “cautiously optimistic” that Gov. Brown’s plan will result in a coordinated, community-based system of care for the thousands of people who historically have faced a dizzying patchwork of care, or no care at all.

But advocates emphasize that mental-health care must have a prominent position in the state bureaucracy.

“We need somewhere to go to at a very high senior policy level,” said Mark Gale, chairman of the public policy committee for the California arm of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill and the father of a mentally ill son. “We need someone at the highest level who understands core mental health policy, law and regulations, someone who has lived it. If we don’t get this right, the system will become extremely dysfunctional. If we get it right, there is great opportunity.”

Financed in part through a one-year appropriation of $861 million in the 2011-12 budget from the so-called “millionaire’s tax” approved by voters in 2004 as Proposition 63 to fund new mental health programs, the reorganization aims for a coordinated approach to mental health – and a major shift from the state to the counties for funding and managing mental-health programs, with state oversight.

Some services are being moved to the huge state Department of Health Care Services. There is talk of two new departments – one under the rubric of “Behavioral Health” or “Mental Health and Substance Abuse,” and another for “Institutions” or “State Hospitals” to administer the remaining state hospitals, which primarily house the criminally insane. A recent spate of assaults, including the strangulation death of a psychiatric technician at Napa State Hospital last October, has prompted a series of state and federal crackdowns at those facilities, which currently house nearly 6,000 patients.

A major concern is abolishing the Department of Mental Health.

“There is tremendous fear in the mental health community about eliminating the Department of Mental Health,” said Rusty Selix, longtime executive director of the Mental Health Association in California. Selix is the co-author, with state Senate President Pro Tempore Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, of the landmark Mental Health Services Act, passed by voters in 2004 as Proposition 63.

“Where are we left if the next administration doesn’t have the same level of interest?” Selix added.

Representatives of advocacy and professional groups are vocal participants in public hearings held throughout the state in August and September by the state Health and Human Services Agency and the soon-to-be defunct Department of Mental Health. The hearings solicit comments for the complex reorganization plan taking shape at the state and local level.

“There are a lot of pieces to this puzzle, and we need to look at it as a whole – courts, prisons, police, state hospitals, community programs – and re-engineer a system that works better,” said Randall Hagar, government affairs director for the California Psychiatric Association, who has followed mental health issues for decades and is the father of a schizophrenic son. He says the Brown administration’s reorganization proposals come at a critical juncture for both providers and families. “Some of the tools are there already, but we have a system that has evolved piecemeal for nearly five decades.”

Rose King, a legislative and state policy expert on mental-health issues (who is the widow, mother and grandmother of mentally ill family members), has regularly attended the ongoing “stakeholder” meetings and expresses increasing concern that the vague outlines of a new system still fail to address historic discrimination against the mentally ill, despite state and federal laws requiring parity in treatment for mental as well as “physical” health.

But she says the reorganization “has great potential” and “creates an opportunity for the integration of mental illness and substance abuse disorders” – and to close the disparities in treatment of mental and physical health care.

Pat Ryan, executive director of the California Mental Health Directors Association, which represents county mental health directors, said the goal of the reorganization “is to get people help sooner rather than later, to avoid both incarceration and institutionalization. If you starve the system and don’t have money specifically intended for prevention and early intervention, you’re never going to get there, because you’re always going to be dealing with crises.” Like other advocates and providers, Ryan said “leadership is critical” in any new system – in which the counties will play an increasingly larger role under the Brown administration proposals and federal health care reform.

“The idea is to get the money flowing directly to counties with fewer strings and less bureaucracy,” said Farah McDaid Ting, senior legislative analyst for the California State Association of Counties. “It’s an opportunity for counties to take an integrated approach and offer a continuum of services. We haven’t had that opportunity before.”

Central to the reorganization are lessons learned from the tortuous implementation of Proposition 63, which levied a 1 percent tax on millionaires and provided $900 million to $1.5 billion annually in additional revenue for local mental health programs.

Hailed as the first significant infusion of state funding for mental health since the closures of decrepit, understaffed and overcrowded state mental hospitals nearly four decades earlier – dumping huge numbers of mentally ill people on communities ill-equipped to handle them – Prop. 63 became both an important harbinger of change and a bureaucratic nightmare.

Critics of its implementation – including some of those who helped write the law – say the process was plagued by red tape, glacially slow state Medi-Cal payments to counties, high consultant fees, accusations of cronyism, and only a trickle of funds for actual programs.

While success stories emerged from communities where homeless mentally ill for the first time found coordinated housing and treatment with Prop. 63 funding, thousands more received little or no treatment, continuing on a tragic downward spiral of homelessness, institutionalization and incarceration, worsened by the severe economic downturn and draconian budget cuts.

The state required counties to jump through an array of bureaucratic hoops and “pre-approvals,” infuriating local officials. At the same time, there were broad state and local cuts to social programs, with some Prop. 63 funds used in recent years to help balance the precarious California budget.

“The planning process went on and on,” says former Yolo County Supervisor and state Assemblywoman Helen Thomson, D-Davis, who chaired the Joint Legislative Committee on Mental Health and the Assembly Health Committee and is a former psychiatric nurse married to a psychiatrist.

“Every county hired a different kind of consultant. A lot of money was going into the Prop. 63 fund, and it was bureaucratized.” While some new Prop.-63-funded programs provided services, she said, “clinics were closing, beds eliminated.” Intended to supplement existing services and create new programs, Prop. 63 funds were used by cash-strapped counties to finance dwindling mental-health services.

Hagar says the language of the law included “something for everybody, to get everybody on board,” in order to ensure its passage. “Unfortunately, it was so diffuse that we had a lot of exemplary projects developed, doing a wide range of things – suicide prevention, school-based services – while heavy-duty services, core services for those who were homeless or not ‘engaged’ in the system, did not receive the same level of support.”

Steinberg remains one of its most passionate proponents, and is clearly stung by what some say is the scapegoating of a landmark law.

“You can’t blame [Prop. 63] for the problems of a mental health system that has been decades in the making,” he said. Quick to criticize the cumbersome implementation process, he is hopeful the current reorganization will address flaws in the process. “The process has been faulty, and it has gone too slowly at times. It’s been way too slow off the mark in reporting data.” Still, he added that despite setbacks, the 2004 law “remains a monumental accomplishment,” and, when fully implemented, will help provide coordinated care and keep the mentally ill out of jails and prisons.

“The fact is that we’re living through the worst recession in 50 years, and we’ve cut budgets in ways I abhor,” he added. “Prop. 63 was never intended to be the solution for all of the system’s problems. It was intended to provide comprehensive care for people with severe mental illness, with the main goal of keeping people out of the system. ”

The law included specific requirements that funds be used only for “new” services (not existing programs), and not for jails or prisons. The complex approval process that evolved, administered by the state Department of Mental Health, will likely be scrapped by 2012-13, along with the department – “reorganized” or “redirected” in state budgetary parlance – as will the state Department of Alcohol and Drug Abuse.

While state administrators are deep in a widely publicized “Public Safety Realignment,” less has been said publicly about the administration’s lower-key efforts to coordinate mental-health and substance-abuse programs with the state’s vast and costly correctional system, which faces massive court-ordered population reductions and mandated improvements to all aspects of prison health care.

Since many prisoners are also mentally ill and vast numbers are serving time for drug-related crimes, advocates say coordination of mental-health and substance-abuse services at the local level is critical to any reorganization plan, and could help avert much more expensive, sometimes deadly, arrests and incarceration.

Local officials express relief that some of the bureaucratic hoops, especially the much-maligned “pre-approval” process for Prop. 63 funding, will be eliminated, and that Medi-Cal reimbursement backlogs – which often stacked up for months, leaving counties holding the bag – will be reined in.

Newly appointed Health and Human Services Agency Undersecretary David Maxwell-Jolly, the former state Health Care Services Department director who is overseeing the reorganization with Agency Secretary Diana Dooley, said technological improvements have dramatically reduced the paperwork blizzard and Medi-Cal backlogs. He noted that state officials were “less responsive and perhaps less efficient than we could be.”

But officials are adamant that state oversight and especially “evaluation of outcomes” will be a high priority under the reorganization, and that mental health will remain high on the administration agenda regardless of its placement in the state bureaucracy.

Among those assigned to this daunting and often thankless task is a career state administrator, Cliff Allenby, recently appointed by Gov. Brown as interim director of the Mental Health Department. A veteran state Finance Department administrator who has headed several state agencies, including the Department of Developmental Services, Allenby has no illusions about the challenges inherent in reshaping a flawed and broken mental health system.

“We don’t have all the answers,” Allenby said. “We really don’t. The stakeholder process is very important – what should remain, and how that should be [reorganized]. I’m not here to prejudge, and we really will listen carefully at the stakeholder meetings to what they have to say, then prepare a proposal for the 2012-13 budget.”

“I’ve been around a long time, and Sacramento is just not the place to establish policies that work in all 58 counties,” he added, borrowing an oft-repeated anecdote from the governor’s proposals. “What works in L.A. isn’t necessarily what works in Redding.”

Many aspects of the proposed reorganization are unknown, including the specifics of long-term funding sources and state oversight of local programs. “Somehow we must have a very high-level policy visibility that is not buried in some bureaucracy somewhere,” says the Psychiatric Association’s Hagar. “The track record hasn’t been great.” But despite sometimes heated disagreements among the various “stakeholders,” there is widespread consensus that the administration push toward coordination of mental-health services is long overdue.

Advocates and providers are hopeful that much-touted plans for “integration of services” will carry more weight than the hollow promises of decades past. They point to the badly fragmented system that resulted, in which the streets, jails, prisons and state mental hospitals for the criminally insane have become both the first and last resort for the severely mentally ill, who might have been helped with earlier intervention.

“The jails are full of people who are mentally ill, and hospitals are ringed with barbed wire and security guards,” says veteran mental-health advocate and former Assemblywoman Thomson. “It’s the ‘trans-institutionalization’ of mental illness, and it’s tragic.”

—
Sigrid Bathen teaches journalism and communications at California State University, Sacramento. She is a former Sacramento Bee and California Journal reporter and editor who has covered mental health issues for more than 30 years.

Out of the Snakepit, Part 1

September 9, 2005 / Sigrid Bathen

by Sigrid Bathen posted September 9, 2005

outofsnakepit Rose King has seen it all.

A widely recognized expert on mental health issues, she has served in the trenches of the mental health wars for more than 30 years–even before the 1969 suicide of her husband, who suffered from what was then called manic depression. Years later, her son also committed suicide—after suffering from the same illness, known now as bipolar disorder.

She saw the emptying of the state hospitals during the 1960s–ultimately, some 87 percent of 36,000 patients were “deinstitutionalized”–that began under Gov. Ronald Reagan and continued through the 1970s by Gov. Jerry Brown. She saw the legions of homeless mentally ill roaming the streets, passing through temporary shelters and jails, victims of the state’s failure to pay for community mental health care as promised when the state hospitals were shuttered.

Today, only 4,700 mental patients remain in state hospitals.

She saw families struggling with health insurers and public mental health programs to get help from a failed system plagued by lack of money, understaffing and disorganized services. The hard lesson learned: Care is often available to the mentally ill only when they are in a state of severe crisis.

“It hasn’t really changed since my husband became ill,” says King, who lives in East Sacramento. “It remains crisis-driven, crisis-perpetuating and fragmented.”

“We turn mental health clients away and tell them to return when their symptoms are so severe and persistent that they cannot meet their own needs, and may no longer even recognize that they need care,” the Little Hoover Commission noted in a 2000 report.

But last year, voters approved Proposition 63, the landmark mental-health initiative that taxes the wealthy at 1 percent of all income over $1 million. That means Californians will now see the first major infusion of money into mental health care in decades—an estimated $1 billion a year, specifically for community mental health care.

King and other activists hope that the money will transform the wretched conditions that blight urban streets and consign millions of afflicted Californians and their families to lives of poverty and desperation.

But the story of Rose King and her family is not just a story of the struggle for mental health care. It is the story of a system so flawed that it harms the very people it is supposed to protect.

Rose and Joseph King first sought help from their health insurer–Kaiser–as Joseph began to experience frightening symptoms of depression and paranoia in 1968. Joseph “saw the doctor who had treated him for asthma, and was told there was no psychiatrist on staff in Sacramento,” Rose recalled. An urban planner who worked for regional planning agencies in California and Alaska, Joseph soon became so disturbed that he could no longer work.

Desperate, they drove to DeWitt State Hospital in Auburn–which was in the process of closing.

“They wouldn’t accept him at DeWitt,” she said. “He didn’t look ill, and they said he ‘didn’t meet their criteria.’ We had no idea where to go.” He was finally admitted “for a couple of weeks” to a mental health clinic run by Sacramento County, where his wife said he was seen by a psychiatrist twice, and sent home on a weekend pass. That night in 1969, at age 36, Joseph King killed himself.

Grief-stricken and now a single mother to 8-year-old twins and their 6-year-old sister, King, who had been a homemaker and volunteer political activist, went back to college, earning a Bachelor’s in government-journalism at California State University, Sacramento, and a Master’s in journalism at the University of California-Berkeley.

She interned in the Capitol for Democratic Sens. George Moscone and Mervyn Dymally, and worked for $25 a week in the unsuccessful 1970 gubernatorial campaign of Assembly Speaker Jess Unruh. She later worked in paid jobs for a succession of powerful Democratic legislators–including Assembly Speaker and Lt. Gov. Leo McCarthy, Senate Leader David Roberti and Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa.

But her first introduction to mental health issues had been in 1967, the year before her husband became ill, when she ran an unsuccessful but well-publicized campaign to recall Reagan, in which many of the core activists were medical and psychiatric workers infuriated by conditions for the mentally ill.

As she became more involved in the issue, she pressed politicians, pollsters and the media to lift the heavy curtain of ignorance and stigma that has long surrounded mental health policy. She helped staff a statewide task force on mental health issues under McCarthy when she was his chief of staff in the lieutenant governor’s office.

“Nobody even asked what public opinion was on the subject,” she says. “I asked Mervin Field to start putting [questions about mental health] in his surveys, and there were two statewide polls done for the [Senate] Rules Committee when I was working for Roberti in the 1980s. The importance of the subject of mental health to citizens was first in one poll, second in the other.”

In 1984, her 23-year-old son Michael was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, which is often hereditary and can surface with frightening symptoms in late adolescence or early adulthood. Years later, after battling the disease for nearly two decades, Michael committee suicde. He was 42 years old.

In 1990, King worked on an initiative to raise the alcohol tax to fund mental health care.

“It was unsuccessful, but not because people didn’t think something should be done about mental health,” she says. She was chief consultant to the Joint Legislative Committee on Mental Health Reform convened by Senate Leader John Burton in 2000 and co-chaired by former Assemblywoman Helen Thomson, author of numerous mental health measures over the years and a former psychiatric nurse who is now a Yolo County Supervisor. Thomson was termed-out of the Legislature in 2002, and King, who was principal consultant to the Assembly Health Committee that Thomson chaired, retired the same year.

King’s oldest daughter, Michael’s twin sister, does not have the condition, says King, but her youngest daughter was diagnosed with bipolar disorder at age 30, following childbirth, which can be a “trigger” for emergence of the disease. King’s youngest daughter, now 43, a college graduate with two degrees earned before the onset of the disease, “manages her condition quite well and works in her profession,” her mother says.

Recently, a teen-age grandchild has shown symptoms of the disease, and the 66-year-old King once again finds herself in the mental health trenches, seeking help from a still-fragmented system of mental health care that has bedeviled California families like the Kings for decades.

As California gears up to put Proposition 63 into effect, former Assemblyman Darrell Steinberg, who authored the measure, King and other supporters are carefully following its progress.

“I’m hopeful,” King says of the flawed, crowded mental health care system. “It’s not like we don’t know what works or what needs to be done…It’s not unusual for a case manager to have a caseload of 120, all people in crisis.”

She adds: “The system today is really no better than it was in the late 60s when my husband became ill.”

Next week: The devil is in the details: putting the voters’ will into effect.

—
Sigrid Bathen teaches journalism and communications at California State University, Sacramento. She has covered mental health issues for 30 years, winning several California and National Mental Health Association awards–and a Pulitzer nomination–for her mental health coverage in the Sacramento Bee and the California Journal.—

The Girls on the Bus

June 16, 1991 / Sigrid Bathen

The Girls on the Bus

Women Reporters in the Capitol Press Corps
Spring 1991 Thesis by Sigrid Bathen

Due to file size constraints, The Girls on the Bus has been split into four PDF files.

Section 1 – Introduction and The Girls on the Bus: A Brief History of Women Reporters Covering Politics
(Pages 1 – 56)
Section 2, Part 1 – The Women
(Pages 57 – 88)
Section 2, Part 2 – The Women (Continued)
(Pages 89 – 130)
Section 3 – The Bureau Chiefs, Notes, and Bibliography
(Pages 131 – 162)

Category: Uncategorized (Page 5 of 5)

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Spring 1991 Thesis by Sigrid Bathen