Priorities for Strategic Budget Planning
AS-2573-02/FGA - May 2-3, 2002
RESOLVED: That the Academic Senate of the California State University
(CSU) endorse the following budget priorities drawn from the report, The
California State University at the Beginning of the 21st Century, adopted by
the Academic Senate CSU in September 2001 to be used in the development of
future CSU Trustee budgets:
- Seek full funding to adjust CSU faculty salaries to achieve parity with
comparison institutions. Experience over the past decade strongly suggests
that the only way to close the salary gap is to seek full funding for the
established CPEC parity figure. Accordingly, we urge that the budget request
funding for the full parity figure.
- Seek specific funding to begin the process of reducing the current
student-faculty ratio to the level typical before the state's fiscal crisis
of the early 1990s. We recommend that this be done in the following ways:
- Request supplemental funding to define a full-time equivalent
graduate student as one carrying 12 units rather than 15 with no overall
increase in the student-faculty ratio.
- Request that the marginal cost formula be revised to specify a
student-faculty ratio of 18.2:1 rather than the current level of 18.9:1;
a student-faculty ratio of 18.2 represents the average student-faculty
ratio during the 1980s.
- Seek specific funding for the purpose of reducing class size, to be
apportioned to all the campuses.
- Seek funding to begin the process augmenting CSU library collections and
restore library staffing. We suggest a specific budget supplement for this
purpose, one designed, over time, to fully restore library staffing and to
restore library budgets to at least their purchasing power of the early
1980s.
- Seek specific funding to establish incentives to attract new faculty
members of the highest quality; hire additional tenure-track faculty and
improve funding for searches and reduce the current proportion of lecturers.
Toward this end, we recommend that the budget:
- Request that the marginal cost formula be revised to specify an
entry-level salary equal to the average entry-level salary in the most
recent academic year plus whatever salary increase has been approved for
the coming academic year. This will go far toward ensuring that funds
for increased enrollment will permit the hiring of new tenure-track
faculty members rather than forcing reliance on less expensive
lecturers.
- Seek specific funding for housing subsidies or subsidized housing
for junior faculty members, including moving expenses for newly hired
faculty members.
- Seek specific funding to remedy insufficiencies due to delayed maintenance
and delayed purchasing during the early 1990s; bring state-of-the-art
technology to more CSU classrooms; improve the current CSU physical plant
to provide adequate facilities for existing programs and for growth.
- Seek specific funding to provide additional sabbaticals and other research
support for CSU faculty and to reconfigure the CSU faculty workload so that
a minimum of one-fifth may be devoted to faculty development (including
research, scholarship, and creative activity). We recognize that this is
potentially a costly project, but we urge that a beginning be made to address
these needs in future budgets to address these needs, and that the CSU
develop a long-term plan to accomplish this goal over the next five years.
- Seek specific funding to increase the number of secretarial/clerical
staff and technical staff who provide services to faculty and students, and
to improve staff wages and benefits to attract and retain the best quality
staff in these positions: and be it further
RESOLVED: That copies of this resolution be forwarded to the
Chancellor of the CSU, the Executive Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs,
CSU, and his staff and the CSU Board of Trustees; and be it further
RESOLVED: That the Executive Committee be directed to establish a
process of advocating these priorities throughout both the summer and the
traditional academic year.
RATIONALE: While the California State University (CSU) will be
facing significant and immediate budget challenges as a result of constraints
on state funding, it is nonetheless important that the CSU engage in broader
strategic planning aimed at addressing the longer-term needs of the CSU. In
September 2001, the Academic Senate of the California State University adopted
The California State University at the Beginning of the 21st Century, a survey
of the experience of the CSU during the decade past and projections for the CSU
in the decade to come. This report includes a series of budget recommendations
that address the changes that will be necessary if the CSU is to meet the
challenges of the next decade. The letter of transmittal for that document
states, in part:
It was never our expectation that our recommendations for funding would be--or
could be--immediately implemented, even in a period of budget surplus. It has
always been our hope, however, that our analyses of the state of the CSU will
inform future budget planning and that our recommendations for both policy and
funding will define goals for the coming decade. We look forward to working
cooperatively and collegially with the CSU faculty, administration, Trustees,
and, as necessary, the legislature to develop these recommendations into
concrete proposals that will permit the CSU not only to meet the challenges
it now faces but also to serve better the people of California.
It was the intention of the Academic Senate CSU that the recommendations be
implemented gradually, over the coming decade, as funding permits. Because
these goals are intended to inform and guide long-term planning, it is,
therefore, impossible to put a specific price either on a specific
recommendation or on the entire set of recommendations. The cost will depend
both on circumstances at the time when the recommendation is first implemented
and on the length of time it takes to provide full funding for the
recommendation. The Academic Senate CSU recognizes that the CSU is currently
operating in a time of severe fiscal constraint. Nonetheless, it urges that,
in preparing its budget proposals for fiscal year 2003-2004 and beyond, the
CSU give priority to the recommendations in this resolution.
APPROVED UNANIMOUSLY -- May 2-3, 2002
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