Administrators at Cal State Bakersfield's business school say below-average pay scales and a host of unfilled faculty positions are holding the school back, and at a time when student enrollments are on the rise.

Next year, Cal State's School of Business and Public Administration will have five open faculty positions and funding to recruit for three of them, said Henry Lowenstein, dean of the School of Business and Public Administration.

The jobs include one position the school has been trying to fill for more than two years.

Another position has been filled for just one year, but that employee is reportedly leaving to take a higher paying job at another school.

Lowenstein said the root of the problem is that Cal State's starting salaries lag behind other schools.

In 2003, the average starting salary for a beginning tenure-track position at the local business school was nearly $12,000 less than the average for similar schools, according to a survey by the major business school accrediting body, the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business.

Throughout the business school field there is a scarcity of qualified candidates, in part because of the requirements. Most business school educators must hold a business Ph. D and have a record of research.

Last year the business school association estimated that the number of open positions outpaced the total doctoral candidates by 500. That number could double by 2007, according to the estimates.

Lowenstein said student enrollment in the local business school is rising steadily, and that the faculty shortage will fall hardest on students, who will have to sit in more crowded classes and wait longer to take classes and perhaps even earn degrees.

In fall 2003 there were 937 undergraduate and graduate students in Cal State's business school, though many were part time.

"The Cal State compensation system has to move closer to the market rate," Lowenstein said. "If it doesn't, Cal State is going to fall farther and farther behind."

Hiring data for the entire Cal State system, which includes 23 campuses, shows that business positions are indeed some of the hardest to fill.

Just 49 percent of all faculty searches were successful in 2003, the lowest rate in five years.

That's compared to an average success rate of 67percent for all fields at the Bakersfield campus over the last five years.

James George, provost and vice president of Academic Affairs at Cal State, acknowledges the business school has had a hard time filling positions recently, but said raising salary levels was not an easy solution.

Business faculty at Cal State earn the highest starting salaries at the university, George said.

The average salary for an assistant professor at the business school is $77,757.

Last year the average salary for assistant professors across all fields at Cal State was $55,676.

George said paying business school faculty more, even to match the prevailing rate, would require sacrifices in other areas. It would also likely stir resentment among faculty in other fields, he said.

And though enrollment at the business school is growing, George said, it's growing slower than the rest of the school.

In six years, enrollment at the business school has risen 18.8 percent, while total enrollment at Cal State has increased more than 36 percent. The business school has the smallest enrollment of the four major schools at Cal State.

"(The business school) is a premier school. I'm pleased ... with the quality of the faculty. But it's the smallest school," George said.

Still, the hiring situation at the business school has gotten acute enough to attract the attention of community members.

The business school's Executive Advisory Council, which is made up of local business and government leaders, is considering starting a fund-raising drive to try to supplement the school's compensation package.

The funds would help pay some of the expenses of tenure-track faculty, such as equipment, conference fees and summer teaching stipends, or could possibly go toward an endowed chair, Lowenstein said.

The advisory council has already successfully raised funds to pay for student scholarships at the business school.

Thomas DeNatale, a local attorney and chairman of the advisory council, said the faculty is the business school's most valuable resource, and that the school is important in keeping a supply of accountants, business managers and entrepreneurs in the area.

"We've got a leg up on keeping (students) here if we can educate them here," DeNatale said.