Long Beach State administration is still experiencing unexpected budget issues due to the financial struggles in California.
According to Long Beach State President Jane Close Conoley, CSULB was tentatively promised a 5% budget increase this year, but that money never came through due to a budget deficit at the state level.
“Our bad budget stems from the bad budget in the state of California,” Conoley said. “There are a lot of things still up in the air, but we have reserves, low debt and healthy enrollments so we’re still in a stable spot as of now.”
Many other CSU campuses face similar issues, with budgets no longer matching expenses.
“Many other campuses in our system do not have good enrollment,” Conoley said. “Those campuses are in trouble because they don’t have the money to run themselves. That’s not us.”
Although CSULB is in a more financially comfortable spot compared to other Cal State universities, financial difficulties have halted multiple projects this year, including a few renovation projects.
Vice President of Administration and Finance Scott Apel said the administration has come up with different solutions to the budgetary struggles.
Long-term solutions include working with deans to determine majors and minors with more successful enrollment rates, faculty reallocation and continuing to develop positive relationships with donors. The short-term solution implemented this year has been the utilization of campus financial reserves.
CSULB is lucky to have reserves and savings prepared for financially challenging years like this one, Apel said. However, with the reserves quickly depleting, Apel and Conoley will need to reassess in the next year to ensure the campus will continue running smoothly.
“We’ll take some of the sting out by using reserves,” Apel said. “But by the end of the next fiscal year, I will expect everyone to have a balanced budget by not hiring, not replacing people that leave and not hiring new folks until we have a balanced budget. We’ll be doing all of this so we don’t have to lay people off.”
Both Conoley and Apel are not anticipating layoffs due to the budget difficulties.
“Other CSU campuses are facing layoffs, so our faculty might be feeling nervous but that’s not the case for us,” Apel said. “I don’t see that we’ll be laying people off imminently at all. But I definitely see that we’ll be hiring more slowly as we try to figure out the landscape about what’s facing us.”
For more information about the campus budget, visit the CSULB website. As a public university, CSULB remains transparent, with the full budget accessible on the website along with next year’s budget request and other financial resources.