Issue date: 12/3/08 Section: News

Media Credit: Benjamin R. Schilter Faculty and students sent faxes to the CSU Chancellor's Office opposing budget cuts. [Click to enlarge]

The state budget deficit continues to balloon as state lawmakers ended a special session last week after failing to reach an agreement on a plan by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to cut spending and raise taxes, as well as to cut $98 million from the California State University system.

The California Faculty Association fiercely opposed the proposal. The Board of Trustees approved CSU Chancellor Charles Reed's plan to implement the cuts, which tightens admissions standards system-wide and gives preference to students applying to campuses near where they live. To save money, 10,000 fewer students will be allowed to enter the CSU system next fall.

The board recommended that the state provide additional funding to eliminate the need for a fee increase. If that does not happen, Reed said he would have no choice but to ask the Board to raise student fees.

At the same meeting, the board approved salary increases for several administrative officials. Coming at the same time as the cuts, the moves have upset faculty.

"The president has made some progress with his dealings with faculty and staff since the no confidence vote," said Kevin Wehr, vice president of the Sacramento State CFA chapter. "This feels like a step in the wrong direction."

The CFA, along with student groups and administration, worked together last spring as the Alliance for the CSU and demonstrated against proposed budget cuts. Because of their coordinated efforts, they were widely credited with preventing most of the cuts from the state budget that was approved in September. The CSU system initially faced more than $300 million in budget cuts.

Now the budget has been re-opened and the legislature was asked to close a growing deficit, so the funds they campaigned to keep may be wiped away. If nothing is done, the state is predicted to run out of cash in February as the worsening economy takes its toll on tax revenues.

The CFA held an event on the lawn today and Tuesday where students and faculty wrote letters to Sac State President Alexander Gonzalez explaining how budget cuts affected their lives. The organization put on an earlier event on Nov. 19 that was instead directed at the Chancellor's Office during its budget vote.

Last spring, these groups worked together to oppose the proposed budget cuts. This fall, however, they are becoming increasingly at odds.

CFA contends that Reed voluntarily returned $31 million to the state, while Reed's office says that the move was requested by the State Department of Finance as part of an effort to trim the budgets of many state agencies.

"It was not optional," Reed said in a conference call with student newspapers at CSU campuses. "The folks who told you that love to misinform students."

Reed defended the new budget cuts, saying that the moves were necessary because the CSU was already underfunded and it could not accommodate additional students for less money. Even without the further cuts, the current budget underfunds the CSU by $215 million and does not provide funding for 10,000 current students, Reed said.

Students who apply by Nov. 30 will be given priority over those who wait longer, and most campuses will stop accepting applications at that date. Students transferring from community colleges who have completed the necessary prerequisites will receive priority over first-time freshmen. Each campus will be given an enrollment target smaller than this fall's freshman class and will take applications until they have admitted enough students to reach that limit.

Rather than all eligible students being admitted, applications will be prioritized and stronger students will be admitted first by using measurements like their grade point average and SAT scores. Eligible students who apply to schools in their service area will be more likely to be admitted there.

Reed said he hoped eligible students who were not admitted would find other options.

"I hope they go to a community college, but I'm sure the community colleges have their own funding problems," Reed said.

The state legislative analyst projects budget deficits for the next five to seven years, which creates problems for the CSU, Wehr said. Throughout the past decade, the budget has been cut when the economy enters a down cycle, but funding levels were not restored once it recovered. The CSU today operates with less funding than in 2002. Wehr said he was unsure how funding would return to what was once considered normal levels.

"Where do we go back to?" Wehr said. "'96? '92? Who the hell knows? Even through the '90s, when the economy was hopping, the CSU didn't share in that. We did okay, but it's not like we did really well."

Wehr said these problems resulted from the CSU system being an ineffective advocate for its needs. The Alliance for the CSU began to change that last spring, he said.

The administrative raises could harm perceptions of the CSU system in the state, said Lila Jacobs, president of the Sac State CFA chapter.

"I think it really hurts our cause because everyone in the country -- in the world, maybe -- are tired of greedy managers," Jacobs said. "It helped cause the whole economic collapse of the country, and here we are going to the community saying, 'fight these proposed budget cuts, we really need the money for the students at Sacramento State,' and then you have the president getting raises for six vice presidents."

While the CFA does not currently support a freeze on administrative salaries, Jacobs said she personally favored such a move.

Contract negotiations between the CFA and CSU were reopened Nov. 17, and feelings over the raises could affect their outcome. The last time the two sides negotiated a contract, it led to a vote of no confidence in Gonzalez and a near system-wide faculty strike. A clause in the contract agreed to then say that if there was not enough money in the budget to honor faculty raises that had been agreed upon, either side could reopen negotiations. The negotiations would likely continue over the spring semester.

Meanwhile, with no legislative action on the budget, the deficit will only get worse, further imperiling state programs.

"I still have faith that we can realign and continue to work together on these goals," Wehr said. "We won't be able to do that if these types of actions continue."

Sam Pearson can be reached at spearson@statehornet.com

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