Frustrated CFA leaders and staff watched Saturday as the Assembly/Senate Budget Conference Committee voted 6-0 to accept the Senate version of the proposed CSU budget. The effect of this vote was to reject the Assembly version, which included a CFA-led move to increase the budget by an additional 3 percent.

This rejection of the extra CSU money came despite many months of heavy lobbying by CSU faculty members, staff and students and other behind-the-scenes activities to win the funding augmentation. If passed it would have been 3 percent on top of a 3 percent increase included in the governor's January and May Revise budgets.

CFA President John Travis pointed out, "The 3 percent funding increase approved by the Conference Committee isn't really even an increase. It’s only a partial restoration of the more than half-billion dollars in cuts from the CSU budget made over the past few years."

There is no doubt, however you choose to slice political fairness around the budget, that the CSU is getting the short end. Consider the number of students served and the money to serve them—more students, less money than in 2002/03. This has all kinds of negative fallout, including fewer, larger classes, lower faculty and staff salaries, higher workloads and fewer tenure-track positions.

Or, consider the increase in state revenues: $7.5 billion. Look at how much of that money flowed to the CSU: none. One comes to the same conclusion: CSU shortchanged.

On the other hand, consider the restoration of funding to the K-12, community colleges and UC budgets. Compare those to the CSU restoration. Same conclusion. The CSU is not getting a fair share of state funding.

Not everyone will agree on the reasons why the CSU is faring so poorly with the governor and the Legislature, despite our best efforts. CFA has pushed consistently on the CSU administration and Trustees to fight harder for budget augmentations beyond the increases called for in the Compact.

Neither the governor nor the legislators, apparently, want to address honestly the impact of the half-billion in cuts suffered by the CSU.

On the first day the Conference Committee took up the proposed extra funding, the CSU administration threw in a letter of support. That was a big step for this administration. But it came so late it could be considered half-hearted and insincere.

What makes this so hard for CFA leaders is that when the Compact was negotiated by the CSU administration, we predicted the Compact would be a ceiling that limits the possibility of future funding. Under pressure from CFA, the administration claimed it would serve as floor—minimal funding, not maximum.

Unfortunately for all of us, CFA's prediction has been right. Times have improved, and state revenues are up. Other public education sectors are prospering. CSU is stuck with a badly constructed Compact, and our administration is taking "baby steps" to distance itself from the long-range, badly conceived deal it struck in the Compact.

We hold the legislative leadership responsible for the outcome this year. The Assembly Speaker and the Senate Pro Tem have let us down two years in a row.

The CSU, our students included, deserve better treatment from these two key leaders. The voters in their districts deserve a different perspective from the two of them on the CSU budget issue.

In today’s meeting of the Assembly Democratic Caucus, it was reported that support may be growing for CFA’s proposal to add $75.7 million for the CSU 2006/07 budget. Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez acknowledged that CFA’s efforts are having an impact, but stopped short of formally supporting the request.

Calls by CSU faculty members, students and staff made during the last several days appear to be influencing legislators who are working to finalize the 2006/07 state budget. Additional calls are now needed before Saturday, when the Budget Conference Committee, which reconciles the budget proposals from the Assembly and Senate, is expected to finish its work on the budget.

The legislative leadership’s goal is to pass a state budget by the June 15 constitutional deadline, next Thursday. The budget bill would then go to the governor, who has until June 30 to take final action.

Call Núñez tonight and Friday to tell him the CSU needs this additional funding to begin the rebuilding process after years of insufficient funding and budget cuts.

The $75.7 million is 3 percent more than what was called for in the governor’s proposed budget, which is limited by the terms of the so-called Compact accepted by CSU Chancellor Charles Reed. Since 2002, the CSU has lost 20 percent of its operating budget—$500 million.

Call Núñez in his District Office in Los Angeles at: (213) 620-4646.

If you have questions, please call CFA’s Government Relations Office in Sacramento at (916) 441-4848.

See an opinion article on the $75.7 million in today’s issue of the Capitol Weekly newspaper by CFA President John Travis here.

A $76 million increase to the 2006/07 CSU budget is still alive as budget negotiations continue today in the Legislature.

As of June 2, the $76 million for the CSU remained one of the largest changes under consideration by the Budget Conference Committee, which is attempting to reconcile 2006/07 budget plans between the state Assembly and Senate.

Last week, phone calls to key legislators from faculty members, staff and students helped keep that money earmarked for the university. CFA is asking for calls to continue this week to Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez until the Budget Conference Committee has made its recommendations on the money.

CFA is asking callers to tell Núñez that the CSU needs this additional funding to begin the rebuilding process after years of insufficient funding and budget cuts.

The $76 million is 3 percent more than what was called for in the governor’s proposed budget, which is limited by the terms of the so-called Compact accepted by CSU Chancellor Charles Reed. And while it is not nearly enough to rebuild completely from the half-billion dollars the CSU lost to budget cuts since 2002, it is a step in the right direction, according to CFA leaders.

Last week, Reed wrote a letter of support to Budget Conference Committee Chair Wes Chesbro (D-Arcata), urging him to keep the $76 million in the budget. See Reed's letter: Click here.

Call Núñez in his Sacramento office at (916) 319-2046 or in his District Office in Los Angeles at: (213) 620-4646.

If you have questions, please call CFA’s Government Relations Office in Sacramento at (916) 441-4848.

CFA is gearing up for an unprecedented action Wednesday afternoon directed at CSU Trustee Bill Hauck, who has failed at his job of advocating for the best interest of the California State University.

Faculty members, students, staff and supporters will gather outside Hauck's office at the California Business Roundtable in Sacramento at noon to deliver him a failing grade and call on him to reverse his harmful approach to leadership.

Buses will take faculty and staff members and students from Chico, Sacramento, San Francisco, San Jose and East Bay campuses to the action at 1215 K St. To get on the bus, contact the CFA chapter for that campus. For more information on the action, go to http://www.calfac.org/Hauck_action.html

A fired-up team of faculty members and supporters made an impassioned plea to the CSU Board of Trustees Feb. 1 calling on them to work harder to understand the depth of the problems on CSU campuses, and to speak out with a stronger voice for the real needs of the CSU.
 
“We hope you take a fresh look at some of the problems we are going to highlight,” said CFA Secretary John Halcon (San Marcos, education) as he introduced each person who spoke. “There is no contradiction between being proud of what we’re accomplishing and recognizing there are deep, growing and threatening problems with which we need to deal.”
 
The speaking team was backed up by some 150 faculty members and dozens of students, staff and supporters who overflowed the Trustees’ elaborate auditorium into the halls, side rooms and outdoor patio.
 
Terri Nelson (Assoc. Professor, San Bernardino) presented the stark facts of economic life for junior faculty members who find it nearly impossible to buy a house, while trying to pay off student loans, handle professional expenses necessary for promotion, and support their families.
 
“The truth is,” Nelson explained, “Our salaries barely reach the median incomes for four person households and, in the case of many faculty, qualify as “low income” per HUD.”
 
She distributed a set of handouts in the PowerPoint format to which the Trustees have become accustomed, concluding with a rhetorical question, “Are CSU faculty still part of the middle class?”
 
“We didn’t get into this job to get rich, but we sure didn’t get into it to get poor either,” Chris Witko (Sacramento) told the Trustees.
 
He echoed Nelson’s question adding, “This is about preserving a middle class lifestyle.”
 
He described junior faculty in his department desperately trying to make ends meet while looking for better paying jobs. And he expressed the bitterness of many faculty members over the generous raises given to top CSU executives late last year. “At the same time that we are struggling,” he said, “the CSU presidents’ transportation allowances alone are over $11,000 more than I make in an entire year. The message this sends to junior faculty is that we are not valued.”
 
Linda Bynoe, a long-time Lecturer at Monterey Bay, explained for the Trustees the connection between quality instruction and greater job stability through three-year appointments for qualified Lecturers. “With the more stable appointments, we derived new scholarly partnerships with tenured and tenure-track colleagues, student learning and mentoring and university and community service,” she said.
 
Yet, she noted, the CSU bargaining team would like to restrict these appointments, thereby returning to greater turnover in the Lecturer teaching force.
 
Henry Reichman (East Bay), a former department chair who serves both on the CFA bargaining team and the statewide Academic Senate, spoke about the problems associated with running departments that have too few tenure-track faculty and too many temporary appointments. He called on the Trustees to “cease the attack on the tenure system,” and concluded, “Do not ignore the simmering cauldron of dissatisfaction among all the faculty.”
 
Organized labor representatives stood in support of the faculty, including Norma Lopez with the L.A. County Federation of Labor and Andy Doyle a firefighter and leader of the Alliance for a Better California, which led the campaign that sunk Gov. Schwarzenegger’s Special Election ballot measures last November.
 
Doyle brought the Trustees another angle on the message — the California Faculty Association has “something I think is more important [than millions of dollars] — SUPPORTERS!”  
 
He added, “The CFA has been instrumental in bringing the higher education component to our Alliance… We have all been reminded of the important of the CSU system and higher education.”
 
CSU students took the podium to support the faculty. Cal State LA student Richard Navarrette told the Trustees, “I’m here representing thousands of CSU students who stand in solidarity with faculty and staff because your decisions are affecting all of us.”
 
Navarrette challenged the Trustees’ priorities, pointing out the money spent on executive compensation increases could have been used to add 262 course sections, providing more class opportunities for up to 10,000 students. “We want to see the same type of investment in faculty, staff and students as you have show to the 27 executives,” he said.
 
Two other CSU staff unions – APC and CSUEU – expressed a subtle but notable display of solidarity with CFA by ceding their speaker’s time to the speaking team so that their remarks could fit into the restrictions the Trustees place on “public” comment, which includes the input from the CSU campus communities.
 
“We sincerely appreciate the solidarity that has developed among the CSU campus unions, and we appreciated their willingness to yield their time to us,” said CFA President John Travis, who concluded the faculty’s presentation to the Trustees.
 
Travis told the Trustees, “We come not as your adversaries, but as your accomplices,” calling on them to join together with the faculty, staff, students and supporters in boldly seeking public support for the CSU.
 
Alluding to a recent exchange between himself and Trustees President Murray Galinson over whether quiet back room dealing versus public demonstration is the best way to advocate for the CSU, Travis said, “This is a public institution. It depends on public support. Join with us in a public strategy to stand up for the CSU.”
 
Throughout the talk the Trustees, campus presidents, and the many Chancellor’s Office functionaries who came from their cubicles to witness the day listened with a rapt, even surprised attention. Trustee Roberta Achtenberg, who was chairing that segment of the meeting, assured the crowd, “You are heard by this board with seriousness.”
 
Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante, the only of the state constitutional officers to attend the meeting, noted, “There continues to be a disassociation between good public policy and the professors’ salaries.” He then turned to his fellow Trustees asking, “Are going to have a priorities on professors’ salaries? Are we going to put resources into the classroom? The magic of education is in the classroom.”
 
Many of those attending came in buses and car pools from campuses. CFA Vice President Lillian Taiz said she was pleased with the turnout and CFA’s capacity to organize such a large number of faculty members, especially so early in the spring term. And, she added, the fact that so many faculty members attended a Trustees meeting for the first time showed the Trustees and the chancellor that “this sentiment extends well beyond a vocal minority.”
 
This was the first in a series of actions aimed at encouraging the university officials to take a stand for the real needs of the university, as well as settle a fair contract with the faculty. CFA campus chapters are now planning events to be held March to build unity within the campus community.  
 
“People want to see a fair settlement and are prepared to do whatever it takes to get a fair contract and a fair shake for the CSU,” said Taiz.
 
See news articles from Feb. 1 at http://www.calfac.org/inthenews.html
 
See more on the Unite to Win campaign at http://www.calfac.org/unite2win.html

• FEB. 1, DAY OF ACTION, CHANCELLOR’S OFFICE

CFA urges all faculty members, students and staff to attend a Day of Action at the Trustees’ Feb. 1 meeting. We need to remind the CSU governing body and the chancellor that they can no longer ignore the university’s real needs.

During their October meeting, the Trustees not only ignored their duty to ask for an adequate 2006/07 CSU budget, they also stuck students with another 8 percent fee hike and gave executives a 13.7 percent pay raise, plus a raise in their car and housing allowances. See more at http://www.calfac.org/budget06-07.html

The Feb. 1 demonstration will begin at 9 a.m. at the Chancellor’s Office, 401 Golden Shore, Long Beach. Faculty, students, staff and supporters are urged to attend.

Download a flyer at http://www.calfac.org/CSU_equation.html

Although it is right for Gov. Schwarzenegger to reverse the latest round of catastrophic student fee hikes at California’s public universities, we are struck by his failure to address the larger issues of state funding for the real needs of our higher education system.

Fee increases and crumbling buildings represent only part of the damage that has been done to California’s once-admired system of affordable and accessible quality public higher education.

Having classrooms is necessary, but it is what goes on in the classroom that promotes the quality of our people lives, the skills that drive an innovative economy, and the strength of our democracy.

The truth is that the Schwarzenegger administration has supported the self-defeating “disinvestment” in our state university’s infrastructure. His recent state budgets maintained a policy to slash state support for the CSU that has punched a half-a-billion-dollar hole in CSU funding and failed to preserve the principle that student instruction must be the institution’s No. 1 priority. It is only now that he faces re-election and approval ratings below 40 percent that he has changed his attitude.

During his State of the State address Jan. 5, the governor asked do we believe in California’s future? CFA will turn that question back onto him. Does he have the foresight to acknowledge that one year of added funding and no fee hikes will help the CSU? We need a long-term plan that offers more classes, more advising, and more student services with real jobs for teachers, not temporary appointments that keep teachers spinning on a revolving door in and out of the classrooms.

We haven’t been able to count on the CSU Board of Trustees to advocate for these needs. In fact, at the Trustees’ annual budget meeting in October, the Chancellor’s Office staff acknowledged a broad array of unmet needs, including the faculty salary gap. Yet the Trustees failed to make a budget request for the actual state funding needed to get the CSU back on its feet. Instead, they voted to give substantial compensation increases to the CSU’s campus presidents and four top executives.

They then went ahead to adopt a CSU budget proposal for 2006/07 that is limited to the “compact” funding agreement between Chancellor Reed and the governor.

Thanks to the Trustees, the CSU budget remains insufficient. The faculty and staff cannot provide our students the quality education they need to thrive in California. Year after year, the Trustees’ poor planning ensures that the CSU will continue to fall behind. Faculty salaries will continue to lag, classes will remain crowded and eligible low-income students will still find education to be too costly.

“It’s a slap in the face to students, faculty, staff and even alumni, that the Trustees would vote so destructively,” said CFA President John Travis. “Not only does it endanger the future of the university, but it taints the CSU’s good name to the rest of California and the country who hire its graduates

“Otherwise eligible students are being priced out of a university system that was set up to give the middle and lower classes a mode to better their lives,” he added. “Those CSU executives who earn hundreds of thousands of dollars a year are hardly the ones who need extra money.”

CFA leaders have pointed out the compensation increases for most campus presidents and executives total more than the entire starting salary of a new tenure-track professor.

CFA wants the Trustees held accountable for their unconscionable decisions. We want them to act responsibly and lead the university toward improvement. We want them to fight for the students and for the CSU. When they hand out fat pay raises for the top executives while taxing students and shortchanging the faculty they are not working in the best interest of the university, and they are not being leaders.

CFA calls on the CSU community to tell the Trustees to stand up for the CSU and stop its detrimental financial policies. Please attend the Feb. 1 demonstration to express your dismay at the misplaced priorities the Trustees have exhibited. The demonstration will coincide with the Trustees’ next meeting at the Chancellor’s Office, 401 Golden Shore, Long Beach. See more at http://www.calfac.org/CSU_equation.html

CFA President John Travis sent a letter to Murray Galinson, chair of the CSU Board of Trustees, condemning the board’s inaction on behalf of the CSU. In the letter, Travis explains the failures of the board and the CSU chancellor to advocate for the university and how, because of this, the CSU and those who work and attend the university, are suffering. He continues by saying that CFA, along with CSU staff and student leaders, has become the real trustee of the university, and that the board has never been responsive to CFA’s voice.

Travis writes: “I say here: the Board is not publicly representing the faculty, the staff, and the students of the California  State University.  The California Faculty Association will continue to lead the campaign to rebuild the  CSU; to defend the University from attacks by those who place little value on public higher education; and  to fulfill the promise made in the Master Plan for Higher Education nearly half-a-decade ago for an  affordable, accessible, high quality education for all eligible Californians.”

Download the full letter here.

As campuses close for the winter break, CFA leaders are gearing up for another tough year in 2006. After the CFA Board of Directors adopted a resolution in November condemning the Trustees’ decision to raise both student fees and top executive’s pay and benefits, it met with chapter presidents and CFA staff to plan for next year’s challenges.

The board’s resolution calls the increases of $30,000 to $50,000 in top executive pay plus hikes in housing and car allowances excessive, and calls the Trustees’ proposed plan to close the budget gap by raising student fees by another 90% over the next four years (above the 90% total increases already imposed during the past three-plus years) unacceptable.

To see the CFA resolution, go to: http://www.calfac.org/resolutions.html.

“This is going to be a very difficult spring for faculty - especially at the bargaining table,” said CFA President John Travis. “As a consequence, we have to begin to prepare to respond to pressure brought to bear on us by the administration.” CFA members should expect a contract fight in the spring, Travis said, and get ready to get involved.

Meanwhile, Chico State President Paul Zingg announced he will donate his $33,000 raise and $20,000 increase in housing allowance to students through scholarships. The interest from the endowment will fund three Presidential scholarships.

Zingg’s current salary is $237,756 per year, after the recent executive pay increases.

“This is one of the executives who got this huge raise who understands the symbolism of having raises so out of tune with the rest of the university at the same time as student fees increases,” said CFA President John Travis. “Here is someone who clearly recognizes that.”

For more information see the Orion Online article:
http://www.orion-online.net/vnews/display.v/ART/2005/11/16/437aa9e4cd37a

When campuses come back to session in January, CFA will be organizing a day of action at the Trustees’ Feb. 1 meeting in Long Beach.