What you get for the money

North County Times 4/1/07

By Gail Chatfield

Having a daughter who attends Cal State San Marcos, I was pleased to read that the faculty union and the administration agreed to extend contract talks for a few more days.

For the time being, that would mean the faculty would not proceed with its threatened two-day rolling walkout. A relief for some students; a bummer for others.

There is no doubt that the CSU faculty has been shortchanged. In 2005, they received a 3.5 percent raise, their first since 2002. Administrators, on the other hand, received a pay raise of 13.7 percent at that time and have enjoyed a bump in salary every year. In January, they gave themselves another 4 percent.

According to the California Postsecondary Education Commission, last year the faculty in the 23-campus university system was paid about 16.8 percent less than faculty at similar universities. Five years ago it was 7.9 percent less. I understand the faculty's fury.

If compensation is not competitive, how can California's university system recruit and retain top-notch faculty? Education is, after all, a business.

"They're underpaid," said Aaron McLear, a spokesman for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. "We need to try to pay them competitive salaries."

Unfortunately, McLear was speaking of the governor's substantial raises to the state's top department directors and Cabinet secretaries, claiming they deserve the bump in salary to keep pace with local government agencies and private sector jobs. Increases were anywhere from 7 percent to 27 percent.

The prisons secretary received a whopping 71 percent, but he probably deserves it, overseeing that bloated system. Prisoners, unlike students, don't have to pay increased tuition to offset their enormous budget needs.

Since 2002, more than $500 million has been cut from the university system's budget. Faculty members have been told there is not enough money to increase their salary. Fair enough, but a report released by the California Faculty Association said the Cal State system had cash reserves of more than $1.25 billion. What's going on here?

The upcoming tuition increase, the fifth in six years, will add $97 million to the coffers. Hard to believe, but since my older daughter started college in 2001, tuition at Cal State schools has nearly doubled. More tuition increases may make the cost of higher education beyond the means of those it is meant to serve.

But instead of increasing tuition fees to offset real or imagined budget shortfalls, perhaps we could spend California's tax revenue a little more responsibly.

Did you read that California paid $1.2 billion in federal penalties during the past decade because we could not create a statewide computer system to track and collect court-ordered child support payments? Besides the penalties, the failed computer system cost the state $111 million. Four other failed computer projects have cost the state about $500 million.

I betcha there are a couple of computer-major whiz kids somewhere on a CSU campus who could whip up a few working computer systems as part of their senior project. And then we should thank their talented professors.

Carmel Valley resident Gail Chatfield is a freelance columnist for the North County Times