Surplus trickles down

Cal State Long Beach's windfall from a record state budget should be nearly $22 million in additional funds from the prior fiscal year, making it the largest budget increase in at least a decade, preliminary estimates from the university's Administration and Finance office show.

Approximately $8.5 million of the university's budget increase is earmarked for salary and benefits increases for CSULB faculty and staff, while nearly $900,000 is targeted for student grants, the documents state. The remaining $12 million is discretionary money that the university must allocate toward meeting the demands of rising enrollment.

With the addition of the university's non-resident tuition and application fees from the past year, the total discretionary budget should be close to $15 million, more than double last year's, according to Robyn Mack, director of Budget and Human Resource Management for the university.

"This is a tremendous, tremendous budget for us," Mack said.  "(Discretionary budget) increases over the past 10 years have been between $2 to $7 million."

Gov. Gray Davis signed the 2000-01 state budget in Sacramento Friday, approving a total increase of $329.7 million, or 12.7 percent, for the entire California State University system. This represents the largest  increase in its history, according to the CSU Office of the Chancellor.

The increase is being attributed to California's soaring economy, which resulted in a record surplus estimated to be at least $12.8 billion, according to the governor's office.  The $99.4 billion state budget is an increase of almost 18 percent over the previous fiscal year.

The new budget maintains student tuition fees throughout the CSU system from last year.  According to news reports, Senate Republicans had attempted to roll back CSU and University of California tuition to 1991 levels but were unsuccessful.  Student tuition had been reduced in the past two budgets, Mack said.

In addition, $100 million has been allocated for new Cal Grants for all higher education students in the state system, according to the governor's office.  The program's expansion will add more than 22,000 new Cal Grant A, B and C awards for financially needy students.

Nearly $38 million was allocated for year-round operations at selected CSU and University of California campuses, with the possibility of summer fees being set at the same levels for regular academic terms, according to the governor's office.  The details of the program, and which universities will benefit, have not been revealed.

According to university officials, the short-term benefit of the rosy budget picture means the campus will be better prepared for a predicted wave of new students.

A estimated 1600 new full-time equivalent students will be added to the campus in the fall, a 7 percent increase compared to the 4.5-percent CSU system-wide projections, Mack said. Roughly 80 percent of the university's discretionary budget will be used to pay for additional staff, faculty and advisors to accommodate the new students.

Without the additional funds, students could have faced longer lines, crowded classrooms, and a dearth of advisors and available classes, Mack said.

In addition, the funds will used by the university for campus improvements, including new library books, computer labs and classroom renovations, she said.

While CSULB received a major share of the $73.1 million allocated by the state for new enrollment, Bill Griffith, university Vice President for Administration and Finance, believes the additional funding is still  insufficient to meet enrollment increases.

"(The budget funds) are very welcome, but there will still be more students than the funding targets," Griffith said.  "We're still really a year behind in meeting student demand."

The CSU board of trustees meets July 14 to finalize each university's budget allocation, Mack said.

In the meantime, the university's Resource Planning Task Force will present its recommendations to President Robert Maxson on allocating the estimated discretionary budget increase.  The task force is composed of a wide variety of campus officials, with voting members from the Academic Senate, the Financial Affairs Council, Associated Students, University Relations and Development, and Student Services.

In addition to recommending departments for new faculty hires and listing mandatory costs, the report will also specify how funding specific campus departments should receive for new enrollment workload expenditures.

University budget documents assembled prior to final state budget show recommended discretionary allocations of $600,000 to Academic Affairs; $530,000 to Adminstration and Finance; nearly $200,000 to Student Services; $60,000 for the Sports, Athletics and Recreation department; $57,000 to the University Relations and Development; and $27,000 to the President's office.