Issue date: 3/13/07 Section: News

Click to open the full text of the report. [Click to enlarge]

President Alexander Gonzalez has already begun to implement the suggestions stated in a report, which is intended to clarify the university's budget and was released today by the Budget Task Force, he wrote in an e-mail delivered today through SacLink.

"I intend to take each (recommendation) separately and implement each as soon as possible," Gonzalez said in the e-mail.

One of these suggestions is the creation of a University Budget Committee to "develop a process for reviewing and making recommendations on new budget requests," the report states.

Another is the creation of a "budget book," a document containing a "thorough description of the budget allocation process and the actual allocation of the budget." Similar books can currently be found at California State University, Fresno and CSU Long Beach.

Sacramento State currently has a $6.5 million budget deficit that must be addressed over the next three years through a combination of one-time and permanent budget cuts, according to the 34-page report.

The deficit was $2 million until June of 2006, when an increase in the university's spending caused the deficit to grow, the report states.

In the 2006-07 academic year, Sac State's budget added "$8.9 million in additional income and $13.6 million in additional expenses," the report states.

The report also details the increases in baseline budgets to each division of the university that were enacted between the 2005-06 year and 2006-07 year, which contributed to the growth of the deficit.

The budget of Academic Affairs was increased $4.5 million, an increase of 4.4 percent from its previous allocation, the report states.

The budget of Government and Civic Affairs grew $46,520, a 38.5 percent increase, and the budget of University Advancement was increased $1.5 million, which was an increase of 54.4 percent, the report states.

However, the report downplayed the importance of these individual increases.

"It would be inaccurate to attribute the deficit to just a portion of the additional budget expenditures, because it is the collective increase of $13.7 million that resulted in a budget deficit of $6.5 million," the report states.

But the report does place some blame on the decisions made between the 2005-06 and 2006-07 years.

"As is documented elsewhere, a significant portion of the increase can be tied to decisions made to increase division allocations . . . in June 2006 - a point in the budget cycle when the on-going structural deficit of $2 million was already known to exist," the report states.

According to the report, $5.6 million of the increase in spending between the 2005-06 and 2006-07 academic years could not be avoided because it includes things that could not be controlled, such as the rising costs of benefits and pay increases mandated by unions or the CSU Trustees.

"It is clear that much of the university's expenditures, most notable university-wide expenses, are outside of its control," the report states.

The report then turns to solutions for the $6.5 million deficit, citing the three-year plan recommended by the Budget Advisory Group and presented by Gonzalez in October. It involves a series of one-time and permanent cuts to close the $6.5 million gap.

The first phase of these cuts has already been implemented, but the $1.6 million reduction to Academic Affairs was postponed with a one-time allocation from Sac State's emergency reserve fund.

"So while the Academic Affairs baseline budget has been cut by $1.6 million, the effect of the cut has been delayed until 2007-08 by the provision of one-time funds," the report states.

The Faculty Senate will be moving its weekly meeting to the University Union Ballroom this week in anticipation of a heated discussion on this report. It will be meeting at 3 p.m. on Thursday.

Cody Kitaura can be reached at news@statehornet.com.

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