CSU
spending unclear due to Senate bill blockage
By
Monica Pardee
On-line Forty-Niner
A
bill proposed in the California Assembly
aimed at creating a more fiscally responsible
atmosphere in the California State University
system through annual reports failed to
gain enough support in July to be passed
by the state Senate.
"AB
1185 was proposed to help us monitor the
way money is spent in the CSU system,"
Lillian Taiz, vice president of the California
Faculty Association said. "It doesn't
do anybody any good to not know how the
administrative funds are being dispersed."
According
to the CFA, the amount of general fund spending
going toward instruction has decreased in
the last decade, while administrative spending
has ballooned. This statistic within AB
1185 has been a point of contention between
the CFA and the CSU Chancellor's Office
which strongly opposed the bill and lobbied
against it in the Assembly and the Senate.
"The
bill was based on a faulty premise that
there was a large increase in the number
of administrators as opposed to faculty
and staff," Jeff Vaca, associate director
of governmental affairs for the CSU said.
"We provided data which demonstrated
that the differences between 1997 and the
present time are very comparable."
According
to the statement of intent from the CSU
to Senator John Vasconcellos, D-San Jose,
chairman of the Senate Education Committee,
the language of the bill indicates that
faculty costs are the only costs that make
up instruction. But according to the CSU,
other categories such as academic support,
student services and scholarships should
also be included as funds dedicated to students.
Including these numbers would bring the
percentage spent on academic and student
services up to more than 71 percent of total
expenditures, according to the CSU.
The
Chancellor's Office compiled statistics
that represent administrators and administrative
costs as being a far smaller piece of the
general fund pie. On other grounds, the
CSU opposed a duplication of services that
they believed would have occurred had the
bill been passed.
"Part
of the bill would have required the CSU
to provide information about administrative
costs that had to do with salaries and wages,
and we felt that the information was already
available in various documents that we submit
to the Department of Finance in association
with the budget process." Vaca said,
"We would basically be using people
and spending money to compile information
that was already available from another
source."
The
CFA said that the decrease in funding for
instruction over the previous decade is
enough to justify passage of the bill. According
to Taiz and the CFA, funding for instruction
has fallen to 45 percent of general fund
spending in the fiscal year 2002-03 from
54 percent in 1990-91, and hitting a low
of just below 42 percent in 2001-02.
"We
think there are some problems there and
what will help us keep track of the way
money is being spent is to have some accountability
measures," Taiz said, "what we're
trying to do and why there's some opposition
to it is that we're trying to restrain managerial
flexibility a little bit, and those who
are enjoying managerial flexibility do not
want to be restrained."
According
to Vaca, the process of extracting the numbers
from the established accounting system would
not only be time consuming, but also wasteful.
"The
bill would require us to provide information
as what was defined in the bill as administrative
costs, again we pointed out that it would
result in greater fiscal impact to the system
to compile the information because it's
not delineated in the way that the bill
asks for it." Vaca said. "The
bill asks for A, B and C, but in order to
get A, B and C we would have to go through
different accounting records and try to
figure out whether administrators were spending
funds on certain things or whether it was
coming from the staff."
Andy
Lyons, a CFA researcher, said that this
is a common problem.
"It's
very difficult to say exactly how much the
system is spending on administration, because
there isn't a very good definition of what
administration is and you can't point to
one of the eight or nine program areas and
say it fits there," Lyons said.
Although
both the CFA and the CSU cite current accounting
categories as a hurdle in achieving this
kind of accountability, none of the legislation
addressed changing the current procedures
to better categorize programs that receive
general funds from the CSU.
"I
don't know why anyone would not want to
support increased accountability,"
Taiz said.
As
far as the CSU is concerned, Vaca said,
"We have no problem with being held
accountable. We have no problem with providing
data to the legislature that they think
will give them better means of evaluating
our performance. The issues that we had
with the bill are on the detail level."
Proposed
in February, Assembly Bill 1185 would have
added a new section to the California Education
Code that would have required the CSU Chancellor's
Office and the administrations of each of
the 23 CSU campuses to compile and present
annual reports dealing with administrative
costs. In spite of the $490 million budget
shortfall in the CSU system for the fiscal
year 2003-04, the bill was not heard in
the California Senate.
Although
the bill passed in several committees and
on the floor of the Assembly, it did not
progress from the Senate Education Committee
where it was heard on July 2. AB 1185 was
proposed as a two-year bill and could be
withheld until there appeared to be a better
probability of its passing at which point
the bill could be reintroduced in the legislature.
The
bill was introduced by Assemblywoman Cindy
Montanez, D-Mission Hills, and was supported
by the CFA. The bill outlined more stringent
policies to amend the current law that mandates
that the CSU board of trustees makes all
rules and regulations regarding the "collection,
custody and dispersal of any and all money
collected by each campus."
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