The Cal State University Board of Trustees froze state-funded pay for incoming presidents Tuesday and discussed a number of “cost reduction strategies,” as about 50 members of the California Faculty Association protested outside the Chancellor’s Office.
The board outlined some 20 different strategies aimed at dealing with a likely state trigger cut and a $350-400 million structural deficit to the CSU system.
“We are now in a position we have never been in before,” CSU Chancellor Charles B. Reed said after a 45-minute presentation that sketched out the possibility of cutting CSU employee and faculty salaries, limiting employer contribution to health care benefits and streamlining the elimination of low-enrollment degree programs.
“We cannot continue to sustain [health care] cost at the [funding] level we are at,” Reed said.
The presentation also introduced the possibility of charging students extra for taking more than 16 units per semester, repeating courses or taking enough units to be considered a “super senior.”
Traditionally, “supers seniors” are those who take more than 100 precent of the units required for their primary majors.
The board even discussed closing campuses, allowing campuses to set their own tuition based on “market demand” and charging more for higher-cost degree programs, but many of these strategies were dismissed as unfeasible.
“We are not going to close campuses,” Reed said. “That’s not going to work.”
As the 23-campus system awaits Gov. Jerry Brown’s revised May 14 budget, it deals with the “very real possibility” of a state trigger cut higher than the expected $200 million cut, according Robert Turnage, CSU assistant vice chancellor for budget.
This larger trigger cut would be compounded by the system’s $350-400 million structural deficit with many of the CSU’s larger “cost reduction strategies” requiring negotiation with the CFA and other unions representing CSU employees.
Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom expressed his concern with relying on these strategies to solve impending budget problems.
“I’m fearful that tuition [increases] or capping enrollment … will be our only two options,” Newsom said, highlighting the fact that the CSU has been negotiating a successor contract with the CFA for two years.
Although many of the strategies presented by the board were dismissed as financially or politically unfeasible, the California State Student Association reluctantly endorsed some as a final option to mitigate state cuts.
According to CSSA President Gregory Washington, the student organization would support a three-tiered tuition model, where students would be charged extra for taking more than 16 units, charging students more for repeating courses and consolidation of administrative departments across the CSU system’s 23 campuses.
Presidential salaries
The board also moved Tuesday to freeze state-funded salaries for incoming presidents but allow the 23-campus system’s foundations to augment these salaries by up to 10 percent of an incoming president’s predecessor-salary.
“The message we are sending is not consistent with the austerity measures,” Newsom said, regarding the salary freeze.
The lieutenant governor criticized the board for what he saw as policy that would continue to guarantee incoming CSU presidents a 10 percent salary raise.
But some on the board disagreed.
“[This policy] gives the option but it’s in no way guaranteed,” Trustee Robert Monville said.
The board stressed at Tuesday’s meeting that CSU foundations would use discretionary funds to augment presidential salaries only if they choose to.
Reed also said that the board was advised not to allow CSU foundations to augment presidential salaries by more than 20 percent.
The current policy caps salary augmentation at 10 percent.
Faculty protest
But, while the board debated the merits of a presidential salary freeze, some 50 CFA members protested outside the Chancellor’s Office chanting, “Move Reed! Get out the way, get out the way” and “Hey-hey ho-ho Charlie Reed has got to go.”
The CFA chants could be heard from inside the board meeting.
During the board’s lunch break, the protesters gathered under a large cutout of Reed to listen to various speeches from CFA members and other union officials.
Natalie Dorado, a Students for Quality Education organizer, discussed her hunger strike.
“The chancellor is trying to divide us,” Dorado said.
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