GRAMMAR SCHOOL ‘BORING’
Tax reform bill could cause staff cuts at medical center if passed
Passage of Proposition 13 could mean possible cuts in staff and budget at the university’s County Medical Center, said Allen Mathies, dean of medicine.
Proposition 13, which would limit the property tax to 1% of market value based on 1975-76 values, calls for cutbacks in county services to meet the two-thirds reduction in property taxes.
“We’ve all been trying to think what might occur if Jarvis passes," Mathies said. “I really don’t know at this point how it would affect County-USC Medical Center, but if it were to pass, it would affect all health care delivery facilities and USC with it.”
Cindy Haness, an assistant to Kenneth Hahn, county supervisor, said the county’s 8 health facilities would be forced to drop a total of 574 employees if the Jarvis-Gann Initiative is approved.
In an article that appeared in the Los Angeles Times (May 2), Harry L. Hufford, county chief administrative officer, said the initiative would have a “devastating effect” on public services.
Hufford presented the County Board of Supervisors Monday with a $2.5-billion alternate spending plan designed to meet the reduction in local property taxes that would occur if voters approve the initiative on the June 6 ballot.
Hufford’s “Jarvis budget,” as he called it, recommended closing all county hospitals except County-USC Medical Center, Martin Luther King and, to a limited extent, Rancho Los Amigos.
Hufford also said virtually all county employees with less than nine years service would face layoff by the county. Hufford estimated that approximately 37,000 workers would be affected and of those about one-third would be in the department of health services.
Mathies said some employees at the medical center are paid by both the county and the university.
“I guess you could say that there is the possibility, if Jarvis passes, of those instructors (doctors) who receive county salaries having their money either reduced or cut off,” Mathies said.
He said the center has a contractual relationship with the county and wotild have to abide by any decisions made by the county concerning the future of the facility.
If the initiative does pass, Mathies said the medical center would work closely with the county to negotiate any cutbacks that would affect the facility.
“If the initiative passes, County-USC and the county would have to deal jointly with what was going on,” Mathies said.
University of Southern California
Volume LXXIII, Number 54 Los Angeles, California	Thursday,	May	4,	1978
Brown establishes state agency to promote use of solar resource
By Sharon Kilmer
SUIT Writer
Gov. Jerry Brown established the SolarCal office as a new state agency Wednesday.
The goal of SolarCal is to put solar energy to use in California buildings by 1990.
Brown said the biggest obstacle in the switch to solar energy on a large scale is the initial investment it requires. For example, few homeowners can afford the price of a solar heating system, he said.
SolarCal will provide low interest loans to consumers to insulate, remodel for energy efficiency and solarize their homes.
Because SolarCal loans can be repaid at the same rate as the consumer’s average monthly utility bill, the consumer does
not face an added financial burden, Brown said. Once the system is paid for, it will belong to the consumer, as well as the energy savings incurred thereafter.
Also, SolarCal will establish standards for solar equipment and will continue research and development in solar energy.
“SolarCal is a microcosm of all the diverse, small solar agencies in the state,” a spokesman for the Campaign for Economic Democracy said at the symposium held later in the afternoon.
SolarCal will stimulate small entrepreneurs and “hopefully, solar energy will not be monopolized like every other aspect of* our life has been,” he said.
“SolarCal will make Califor-
nia the capital of solar energy. Solar energy means jobs, lower utility bills, lower pollution and an opportunity for growth of small businesses,” Brown said.
The announcement, made at a press conference held at the California Museum of Science and Industry during the Sun Day celebration, brought cheers from the crowd.
Sun Day, a salute to solar energy of the past and of the future, seemed an appropriate setting for Brown’s announcement.
Brown also stressed the need for an all-out effort on the part of government and consumers to make solar energy a way of life.
“Sun makes people feel good,” Brown said. “It brings them together rather than pulling them apart."
HOT AND COLE__________Students got their share of nostalgia Wed-	entitled under the banner, "Red Hot Porter," named after	student singers and musicians	also performed in the show,
nesday. While relaxing at noontime on the patio of the Student	Cole Porter, the American composer. Charmaine Mancil,	which was a Lunchbox Theatre	production. DT photo by Sue	*
Activities Center, they were treated to a rendition of tunes	pictured above, sang Porter's The Laziest Girl in Town. Other	Adams.
Security officers to be given 6% pay increase
By Charles Swenson
SUIT Writer
Campus security officers will receive a 6% salary increase retroactive to July, 1977, said Carl Levredge, director of security and parking operations.
The increase was given to university employees last July.
“The security officers did not receive their raise (in July) because we were involved in litigation with the Security Officers Assn.,” Levredge said.
“Under the law, a union has the right to bargain over the allocation of benefits to its members and an employer has the right to wait until negotiations proceed before granting such benefits,” said Robert Stone, an attorney for the university.
“The officers would not receive the 6% increase until the negotiations were resolved or until the association was decertified,” Levredge said.
The Security Officers Assn. lost its certification from the National Labor Relations Board earlier this year. The university stated that there was a hidden illegal relationship between the association and the Teamster’s Union.
“A guard unit, such as campus security forces, may not affiliate with a nonguard union under the rules of the National Labor Relations Act. Determining affiliation is a very tricky legal matter,” said a board spokesman.	,
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Precocious 12 year old finds classes here easy
By Gigi Golden and Diane Kessler
“Some kids would look at (going to college) as leaving friends behind. But I look at it as gaining more friends,” she said, tossing back her long pigtails clasped together by Rbnald McDonald elastic bands.
The 12-year-old girl flashed a smile and swung her legs back and forth under her chair. She is Mariel Aragon Yick, a second-semester freshman at the university.
Mariel doesn’t think college is too difficult. In fact, she finds calculus “easy” and is doing well in her other classes: chemistry, English, piano and voice.
Mariel is a gifted child who skipped three grades in grammar school and finished high school mathematics through a six-week accelerated program at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. Md. last summer.
The highly concentrated Johns Hopkins program allows gifted children like Mariel to learn at their own rate.
The small girl of Filipino descent sat calmly, wearing a denim overall jumpsuit. She spoke clearly and intelligently as she described her difficulties in grammar school.
“My mother was so surprised the day I came home from the fourth grade and
said, ‘There’s nothing you can do to make me go back to school tomorrow.’ ” At that point, school had become hopelessly boring for her, she said.
“They were doing the timestables and I had learned the timestables when I was two,” she said.
After her summer at Johns Hopkins, Mariel wanted to
MARIEL ARAGON YICK
continue to be challenged by school. Her mother could not find a high school in their home district with an accelerated math program to suit Mariel’s needs. She contacted some of the local colleges with discouraging results.
Most of the universities would either hang up or get mad when they were told Mariel was only 12.
“USC was the only school that stayed on the phone long enough to arrange an interview," Mariel said.
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