Mom and dad might hide things from you when you’re growing up “for your own good.” We can accept that the federal government must hide certain things from public view “in the interest of national security.”
It’s difficult to conceive that the California State University system meets either of those criteria; they are not our parents and there isn’t much they deal with that falls in the realm of protecting U.S. citizens from “enemies foreign and domestic.”
Why, then, do the CSU and University of California administrations — the CSU board of trustees, in particular — deem it necessary to play a shell game with information that should be open to the public? It’s likely because there is much to hide.
To keep the public’s prying eyes off of potentially shady financial dealings, the CSU and UC vehemently adhere to a California Public Records Act loophole to block the free flow of information about foundations and auxiliaries by claiming they are private entities.
This is the first time we’ve realized that the money we pay in student fees is private money. Among the auxiliaries that claim immunity from public scrutiny at Cal State Long Beach are the CSULB Foundation, Associated Students Inc. and 49er Shops.
To close the loophole, Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, introduced Senate Bill 218 in February. SB 218 would force these foundations to open their books to the public, excluding anonymous donations. SB 218 was cruising along when the state Senate passed it 32-1 and it easily cleared the Assembly Governmental Organizational Committee on July 9.
Then it got sidetracked by CSU and UC lobbyists. They pushed it into the Assembly Committee on Appropriations — the place where high-priced lobbyists work exhaustively to get bills killed.
We have to wonder why administrators of public universities would fight so hard to protect “private entities” if the systems have nothing unscrupulous up their sleeves. The problem is that CSU — and we suspect the UC — has much to hide in these foundations.
The 23-campus CSU shovels approximately $1.34 billion of its $6.7 billion budget into its 87 foundations and auxiliary organizations, where the public can’t see it, according to Yee.
That’s nearly three times our current $584 million deficit.
It’s ironic the two systems have forced SB 218 into appropriation considering its need was borne out of misappropriation.
Here’s how the CSU shell game began. The Fresno Bee was investigating who was buying high-dollar suites in CSU Fresno’s new basketball stadium. The Bee made public records requests of the two foundations in charge of the fundraising efforts to sell the suites, but the requests were denied.
The Fresno Bee took them to court and the judge ruled that, although the auxiliaries should fall under the public records act, it was up to the Legislature to change the language to close the loophole.
Let us recap thus far: The CSU doesn’t want the bill to pass because it will cost too much to print documents for the requests, but it doesn’t mind spending “unrevealed” amounts of money to lobby against it in appropriations. How are we doing so far?
One of the curiosities that point to a need to pass SB 218 involves our own Chancellor Charles Reed and his use of platinum-level private lobbyists. The San Francisco Chronicle reported Reed has “retained high-priced lobbyists without competitive bidding, even though CSU has a Sacramento office where it runs a $1.1 million-a-year, in-house lobbying unit” staffed by state employees.
To date, the firms have been paid more than $2 million in fees to track bills about such CSU-important items as money laundering, sex offenders, affordable housing for Iraq veterans and terrorism — bills no CSU student can live without. At one point, the firms were paid $400,000 for doing absolutely nothing.
Other scandals show the need to close this vile loophole.
In 2007, CSU Sacramento’s University Enterprises spent $27,000 to remodel the kitchen in a house the university’s president bought. It also made $233,000 in loans at 1.697 percent interest to the same campus president.
Earlier in July news reports broke that a foundation at Sonoma State University made personal loans to a former board member; money he has since said he can’t repay — about $1 million dollars worth.
A former CSU trustee was involved in a mixed-use scam that would have made him the operator of a movie-theater being built on CSU Fresno’s campus. The university’s auxiliary argued there was no conflict of interest because it was a private deal. Fortunately, the Superior Court judge smelled rotten eggs and sacked the plan.
The Student Press Law Center reports that recent “Freedom of Information Act requests … about textbook sales at” campus bookstores and “salaries of student body executives” have been denied because of the claim that “both groups are auxiliaries.”
It’s important that these foundations end the practice of secrecy so such conflict-of-interest scandals cease to plague the system. This is especially critical at a time when students no longer have faith in CSU’s leadership or commitment to integrity.
SB 218 is not only important, it is necessary. We must demand accountability and transparency from any agent — private or public — that operates under the auspices of benefitting students and higher education, notably if they use access to the public university system to conduct their business.
Anything less by our administrators is pure unadulterated hubris.