TURLOCK -- California State University, Stanislaus, administrators are leaning toward cutting faculty salaries in the summer to save as many as 172 course sections during the regular academic year.

But courses may have to be cut anyway to absorb significant budget reductions the state is proposing.

"We're looking at it very carefully," Provost David Dauwalder told a group of faculty and staff at a budget forum on campus Thursday.

Stanislaus State's share of a proposed $240 million cut this year to the overall CSU budget is estimated at between $5.5 million and $6 million.

Gov. Schwarzenegger is working to close a $30 billion shortfall in the state's budget with Proposition 57 -- a $15 billion bond measure -- and cuts to programs and services, including higher education.

He proposes a 9 percent cut to the CSU system. Other proposals include raising undergraduate fees by 10 percent, and graduate student fees by 40 percent.

That's on top of a $304 million hit to the CSU system in 2003-04, as well as a $23.8 million cut implemented in December.

Passage of Proposition 57 assumed

Patrick Lenz, CSU assistant vice chancellor for budget development, presented an overview of the state budget crisis Thursday. A student asked him what would happen if Proposition 57 fails. Said Lenz: "I wish I could tell you there's a Plan B. There isn't, and this is just beyond my thinking."

Stanislaus State officials are making budget plans that assume Proposition 57 will pass. The university received a $4.5 million cut in the last academic year.

"This is the second swipe at this," said Mary Stephens, vice president of business and finance.

Student enrollment could be cut by 5 percent, she said. Though the university will be hit with an overall 9 percent reduction, the plan is to cut the university's three colleges -- business; education; and arts, letters and sciences -- by 5 percent, or about $1.6 million, Stephens said.

That leaves the rest of the university to absorb a $4.5 million reduction. "That is very steep," she said.

Dauwalder said if the 9 percent cut were implemented across the board -- in other words, if they cut the colleges as much as the rest of the campus -- the result would be 13.5 percent fewer course sections. Money would be saved by eliminating part-time faculty, he said.

Some class sections still must go

In an effort to offer as many sections as possible, administrators propose the 5 percent cut. That still equates to a loss of about 8 percent of part-time course sections, Dauwalder said.

In an effort to keep about the same number of courses that are offered now, Stanislaus is leaning toward running a "self-supported" summer session. The chancellor's office has offered this as an option this budget year, he said.

That would save 172 three-unit course sections during the academic school year, Dauwalder said. Student fees would remain the same, but the university would receive no money from the state to support the summer session. To make up the difference, faculty would be paid between 72 percent and 75 percent of what they are normally paid in the summer, Dauwalder said.

Stanislaus State needs to reduce its enrollment by about the same number of students it serves in the summer, he said. And since the university would not have to count summer enrollment toward its overall target, the university could continue to serve about the same number of students during the regular school year, he said.

Stanislaus State plans a universitywide discussion on handling the cuts.