California Faculty Association
October 31, 2005
At the CSU Board of Trustees meeting on October 27, 2005, faculty, staff and students got a chilling look at the future should the Governor's propositions win on November 8.
With an arrogance that shocked even seasoned Chancellor's Office watchers, the Board of Trustees raised student fees another 8%, proposed that their fees increase 10% each year for the next five years, and then, with very little discussion, proceeded to raise the salaries of its highest paid executives an average of 13.7% plus higher housing and car allowances.
At the same time, they approved a bare bones budget for the system -- a 3% increase in sync with the "compact" agreement between the chancellor and the governor made two years ago.
"Once again, the Trustees acquiesced to the governor and the chancellor, making the Compact funding the maximum they will request, even though every person in that room knows it is not enough money to fulfill the mission of the California State University," said CFA President John Travis during a break outside the Trustees Star Chamber.
"They are abandoning students by shoving budget shortfalls onto them with fee increases that far outpace inflation or any other index. At the same time, they are leaving the faculty to try to educate students without enough support.
"Although the Trustees adopted a resolution expressing their apparent concern about the salary gap, at the bargaining table CSU Administration reps make no serious effort to close it. Instead, they try to cut benefits for lecturers, overcharge the step increases for eligible faculty, ignore the salary compression for junior and senior faculty, and then talk piously about merit pay, which has been a disaster in the last two incarnations.
"Twenty-seven of the Board's executive friends must be very happy today. They walked out with big raises as well as hefty housing and car allowances. But 40,000 faculty and staff and 400,000 students have nothing to celebrate. The Trustees have forgotten what the CSU is here for. They are strangling the university with inadequate funding. It's unacceptable," Travis said.
How did it happen?
CFA and other CSU union leaders as well as students from all of the 23 campuses overflowed the spectator section of the Boardroom hoping to impress on the Trustees the need for a budget that will rebuild the CSU. Students were emphatic in their opposition to the fee hike which came first on the Finance Committee agenda as the other Trustees looked on mutely.
CSU Dominguez Hills Associated Students president Rex Richardson told the Trustees he has watched buddies from his community drop out of school as the fees and cost of living become unmanageable. "For you, another 8% fee increase is fine. But in my community, in our paradigm, it means 100% no access."
"Predictability" of fee hikes has become a CSU administration mantra allowing the Board sanctimoniously to argue that it will allow students and their families to plan for fee increases. A San Francisco State student astutely remarked to the Trustees that for students such a policy really means "the ability to predict when you can't afford a CSU education any more."
Student Trustee Corey Jackson condemned the fee hike proposal, accusing the Trustees and state officials of singling students out for a tax increase when they will not raise taxes on anyone else. "Starting today, I will no longer call them fees. I will call them student taxes." As he declared he would vote no on the proposal, students in the chamber and the overflow room cheered.
Ignoring the students' opposition, the Trustees adopted an 8% fee increase for undergrads and credential students and a 10% for grad students.
The Trustees then paid lip-service to their "concern" about faculty and staff salary gaps (low salaries) by passing several no-action resolutions.
CFA president John Travis, Associate Vice President-Lecturers Elizabeth Hoffman, and CFA Northridge president Dave Ballard addressed the Trustees. As he had in his letter to Trustees Chair Murray Galinson last month, President Travis urged the Trustees to request a budget large enough to address the true needs of the university.
Hoffman and Ballard described the difficulties of lecturers and junior faculty who are being squeezed out of teaching in California by inadequate salaries, heavy workloads, and a rapidly rising cost of living.
Students, staff, and faculty members were deeply disturbed by the direction the Trustees are taking the people's university. On the one hand, they are making the system increasingly unaffordable to eligible students. On the other hand, they are failing to pay its faculty and staff enough to survive in this high cost of living state.
The Board did take good care of CSU campus presidents and top four executives, however. The 23 CSU presidents got an average 13.7% pay hike, an average of $30,000 a year. Plus, since everyone knows house and gas prices are soaring in California, their annual housing allowance was increased $30,000 and car allowances raised to $1000 a month. As a result, many campus presidents now get a housing allowance that's larger than the starting salary of most assistant professors.
But, that's not all. Trustees William Hauck (sponsor of the governor's election propositions - remember to Vote No!) and Roberta Achtenberg unveiled a plan for student fee increases of 10% every year for the next five years. They argued that predictability - read inevitability - of fee increases for students is of overall importance.
"If the actions of the Trustees on October 27 demonstrates nothing else, they show that neither the Chancellor nor the Trustees have the political will to fight for the CSU," said CFA Vice President Lillian Taiz. "Instead, it is up to us, the faculty, students and staff to advocate for an adequate budget for the CSU and public policy that supports an affordable, accessible, quality education at the CSU for Californians.
"We must defeat Prop 76 to prevent even greater pressure on the CSU budget; we must defeat Prop 75 so that we have the means to speak out and fight for the CSU."