Instruction,
funding may be threatened
By
Monica Pardee
On-line Forty-Niner
In
May, legislators, the California Faculty
Association and the Cal State University
system set out to protect certain university
programs from budget cuts by writing the
Supplemental Report Language, a document
of legislative intent that outlines CSU
budget priorities. Now, Cal State Long Beach
is in the final stage of its Resource Planning
Process with only President Maxson's approval
left to go and across the board cuts looming
over the 2003-04 fiscal year.
The
California budget deficit created a tight
situation in the CSU system when almost
$500 million was taken from the university
system's funding, said Janet Parker, director
of the budget at Cal State Long Beach. Those
cuts represented an 11 percent decrease
from the 2002-03 fiscal year and have impacted
CSULB with a $35 million shortfall.
"It
is an overwhelming challenge to take that
magnitude of cuts and to continue to provide
undergraduate and graduate instruction,"
Patrick Lenz, assistant vice chancellor
in charge of budget development said. "Campuses
are doing an outstanding job in trying to
adhere to every aspect of that language."
The
report suggests that campuses do everything
in their power to maintain the three key
program areas of classroom instruction,
student services and library funding. The
CFA and the CSU cooperated with the legislature
to produce the report.
"We
were hoping that we could work together
on these things, that we can make it as
a team," Lillian Taiz, vice president
of the CFA said. "We have a terrible
budget situation and we have to make sure
that money is spent appropriately."
According
to Lenz and the Chancellor's Office, the
CSU is doing everything it can.
"We
don't contest the language, we're in agreement
on the language, but we're troubled that
we agreed to this language with an understanding
of certain budget cuts and then were cut
by another $83 million, and we're still
trying to meet the intent of this language,"
Lenz said.
In
the tradition of other bills proposed this
year, the report attempts to maintain a
balance between the administrative and instructional
side of spending in the CSU system.
"I
think people lost track of what they should
be doing and began spending a little too
much on administration and a little less
money in the classroom," Taiz said.
Although
the language is still receiving support
from campus administrators now, its loose
intent may make it harder, if not impossible
to enforce if times do get tougher in the
next few years. "The supplemental report
language indicates the intent of the legislature
to do something," Lenz said. "There's
no requirement by law, there's no regulation,
there's nothing that the campuses absolutely
have to adhere to, other than the fact that
it's legislative intent."
Some
of the intents of the legislature include
reduction of administrative costs and deferment
of the implementation of the Common Management
System, known on this campus as My CSULB.
Cutbacks to travel expenses and a decrease
in management personnel hiring has made
the 15.1 percent cuts within the Chancellor's
Office evident. "We're at a point where
we're scraping every possible avenue to
try to be as efficient as possible and deal
with these budget cuts we've had to take,"
Lenz said. Cuts to the Chancellor's Office
have left high-level management positions
vacant and put basic supplies like paper
in high demand.
This
was just the purpose that the SRL was meant
to accomplish. More cuts to administration,
less cuts to classroom instruction and student
services. According to Taiz and the CFA,
administrative spending has been largely
unchecked in recent years.
"What
we ended up with in the early '90s was a
new configuration of the budget that basically
eliminated all of the line items, and gave
the administrators several large buckets
of money and said, 'Now you have as much
money as you need, go off and spend the
money,'" Taiz said. "Unfortunately,
what occurred over the last decade was what
frequently happens in these situations where
there isn't any accountability and there
isn't any way for folks to look over and
see where the money is going."
The
budget for CSULB will mean across the board
cuts to all departments, according to Parker.
Excluding instruction, each of the various
program areas will carry a five percent
budget cut for this year. Classroom instruction
was protected from all cuts in the original
budget plan, but when an additional $83
million was later cut from the CSU budget,
administrators agreed on a one percent decrease
in funding for classroom instruction as
well.
One
aspect of the SRL emphasizes the importance
of maintaining reasonable class size and
sections of courses offered. According to
Gary Reichard, provost and senior vice president
at CSULB, class size will not be affected,
at least not this spring.
"We
don't anticipate that there is going to
be any impact on the spring semester because
all of the divisions agreed that student
services, administration and academic affairs
and university relations should take cuts
across the non-instructional areas to make
up for the shortfall we had going into the
year and to spare instruction so that we
were able to meet our obligations to students,"
Reichard said.
But
a common thread between administrators is
the doubt of whether or not the system can
handle another year like this without failing
to meet the intent of the language.
"We've
got to decide if we can do the same strategy
for next year," Reichard said. "Depending
on the size of the cut, can we just run
all of our classes and find ways to save
money outside of those classes? I don't
know. It gets tougher every year."
Lenz
said, "Who knows what will happen next
year. With the pledge of no new taxes by
the governor-elect, does that mean that
the only way of balancing the budget is
to make more cuts? I think meeting this
kind of language next year would be nearly
impossible if we're subjected to the kind
of cuts we took this past year."
Although
the 10 percent fee increase in the spring
and the 30 percent increase for the fall
semester were looked upon with contempt,
the fees may be the only action that kept
classroom instruction intact. "The
fee increases were part of the reason that
our campus and other campuses were able
to make it work this year," Reichard
said, "Without the fee increase we
would not possibly have been able to hold
instruction at the level we have."
At
CSULB budget cuts have hit the campus hard.
In the coming weeks, the final budget will
be revealed, though the RPP will be far
from over. The coming semesters will prove
more difficult for administrators looking
to meet the intent of the legislature. "It
just becomes a more and more difficult problem
each year to separate instruction from non-instruction.
It is kind of an artificial distinction
at some point," Reichard said.
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