The University of California at Merced was supposed to be hosting First Lady Michelle Obama for their commencement ceremony this weekend.

The University of California at Merced is still hundreds of thousands of dollars short in its effort to defray the cost of Saturday’s commencement ceremony.

The university has raised $130,000 toward the estimated $700,000 bill. Leaders budgeted $100,000 for the ceremony before first lady Michelle Obama accepted the invitation to speak. (Fresno Bee)

John Garamendi Jr., an official at UC-Merced, is apparently responsible for making the budget work. With Michelle’s visit bringing out all the state pols, save Arnold, the cost continues to grow.

While this isn’t really a general fund expense, as commencement ceremony costs are usually underwritten by donors, it does send a rather appropriate message for the state. We can’t even afford the First Lady’s visit.

On completely unrelated news, I’ll be speaking at the East Bay DFA meeting tomorrow night. Come by to say hi and enjoy some good times.

I will also be speaking on May 20, at the Diablo Valley Dems meeting.

UPDATE: Speaking of graduates, many of them are millenials. If you’d like to learn more about the millenial generation and are in the Bay Area, you might want to check out this event with Morley Winograd and Mike Hais, authors of Millennial Makeover: MySpace, YouTube & the Future of American Politics.