By The Cal State University Board of Trustees pitched a request to Gov. Jerry Brown yesterday asking for an additional $250 million from the State for next year’s budget , an increase that would put next year’s state funding at 10 percent higher than this year’s.
The majority of the additional funds, $160 million, is being requested to accommodate a 5 percent increase for student enrollment, which would generate an additional $85 million in funding.
The increase, coupled with the additional state funds, would provide $15 million for critical maintenance of infrastructure, $50 million to support student success efforts, $20 million for mandatory cost increases and $90 million for increased employees’ compensation, according to the CSU Committee on Finance.
Current CSU projections see state funding nearly returning to pre-recession levels, when the CSU received $3 billion in state support, by the 2016-17 school year.
The CSU Assistant Vice Chancellor for Budget Robert Turnage said that current funding doesn’t allow the 23-campus system to provide for California citizens like it should.
“I would say that we’re a very critical piece of California’s social ecology,” he said. “What we are able to do for Californians in this university is a very powerful build toward the future.”
According to the CSU Committee on Finance, the system turned away 22,123 eligible students in fall 2012 due to a lack of funds. In fall 2008, only 6,174 eligible students were denied entry.
Turnage also said that deferred maintenance of campus facilities has built up over several years and that there are now $1.7 billion worth of repairs needed throughout the CSU system, with $500 million being a “priority” and $175 million dedicated to seismic retrofitting.
He also said there is an increased demand for technology infrastructure and replacement of instructional equipment.
“[Putting off maintenance] is not something we want to be doing, and it’s not good for the future of the state,” Turnage said. “Every year there’s no money to address the problem.”
Trustee William Hauck also said that “crucial” work needed to be addressed quickly.
“It seems to me that we are occupying space and using buildings that are sometimes 30, 40, 50 years old that desperately need attention, and we’re essentially not giving them any attention,” he said.
With the CSU’s deferred maintenance and needed repairs, Brown questioned the trustees’ goal to accommodate a 5 percent increase in student enrollment next year.
“Suppose you were running a hotel and the roof was leaking, the elevators were about to break, and the water systems weren’t doing to well, and despite all that you were going to add another 20,000 visitors,” he said. “Don’t you think you have to take care of the basics first?”
Brown also said taking on more students would further tax the CSU’s facilities, and he questioned the requests for student success funds.
“If there’s some deficiency in whatever we call student success, should we be adding to the number of students who need student success programs?” he said. “We should take care of what we have and make sure all that works.”
Brown suggested that new methods, such as online education, should be used to address the problem of student enrollment and that asking for additional funds won’t solve the problem.
“Can we meet some of this need in some new way?” Brown said. “You have to think of new combinations.”
Hauck said that the CSU will make do with the funding it receives either way.
“If it turns out that $250 [million] is not there, if it’s only $125 [million] more, we’ll have to adapt our approach,” he said. “I think this university has been very responsible with respect to how it has approached income and outflow, and I think it will continue to do that.”
