CSU chancellor paints bleak budget picture

By Rory Sa

Chancellor Charles Reed has some bad news for students throughout the California State University system—things are about to get worse.

Reed spoke Wednesday with student journalists from among the 23 CSU campuses to discuss the effect the proposed state budget will have on the state university system.

“ It is not a pretty picture, as a matter of fact everything could change,” Reed said.

Reed said the CSU Board of Trustees discussed ways to deal with Gov. Arnold Schwartzenegger’s proposal to reduce the CSU budget by $771 million this year.

“ If you take that cut on top of the cut we took the year we’re in right now, that’s 20 % of our budget reduced in last two years,” he said.

One proposal is to implement a 5 percent enrollment reduction, which Reed said will be spread evenly through all 23 CSU campuses. Under this proposal about 20,000 students will be turned away from the CSU next year.

“ Because the cuts over the last two years are so big, we can no longer continue to serve as many students as we have now,” Reed said.

“ We’ve got to start now because the application period ended in November,” he said. “Students are waiting to hear if they’re enrolled.”

Students redirected to community colleges would be required to earn their Associates degree before they could return to a CSU. However, they would be guaranteed enrollment in the CSU once their degree was earned. Reed said this would save the CSU system about $100 million.

Reed also reiterated the CSU’s opposition to cutting all funding to outreach and the Educational Opportunity Program. “We would rather reduce our enrollment than eliminate EOP/outreach,” Reed said.

“ We think we can do something more creative to keep the programs, rather than wipe them out,” he said.

Reed said it was difficult to know if there would be any layoffs of staff or faculty. “We’re sure that in end there will be some staff reduced, but I can’t say where that is or what that might be,” Reed said.Reed met with campus presidents on Monday, and asked them to prepare budget plans to see how the cuts might affect staff.

“ You can’t cut $70 million out of your budget over the last three years, and not have some effect when more than 80 percent of the budget is tied to personel.

” Reed warned that if Gov. Schwartzeneger’s proposition 57 does not pass, the CSU could face more drastic cuts.

“ If it fails, we’re back at ground zero; the potential to cut from the university goes up drastically,” he said.

Reed encouraged students, staff and faculty to let their voices be heard at a budget summit meeting in February in Long Beach to work on different ideas for dealing with the cuts.