Minutes from January 8, 2013-CSU System

Tuesday, January 8, 2013 

  Open Board of Directors Meeting

San Bernardino Community College District

 114 S. Del Rosa Drive San Bernardino, CA 92408

 

Minutes 

Present:  Don Averill, Deborah Barmack, Carole Beswick, Tom Brickley, Erin Brinker, Ann Bryan, Ken Coate, Bill Easley, Ray Gonzales, Dick Hart, Kristy Hennessey, Mark Kaenel, Lowell King, Ed Lasak, Bill Lemann, Temetry Lindsey, John Mirau, Lou Monville, Tomas Morales, Charlie Ng, Tom Nightingale, Steve PonTell, Bev Powell, John Prentice, Susan Rice, Kristine Scott, Larry Sharp, Paul Shimoff,  Phil Waller, Stan Weisser, A.J. Wilson and Ray Wolfe.  

Guests: Rebecca Boydston, Joseph Gonzales and Nels Jensen

Announcements:  1) A joint meeting with the Monday Morning Group is tentatively planned for Wednesday, January 16, 2013 at the Mission Inn, Riverside.  A confirmation e-mail will be sent out to the membership.  2) Committee Chairs are reminded to prepare for committee work at next week’s meeting.  Additionally, appointment requests for Washington, D.C. are needed as soon as possible.  

M/S/P: Minutes from December 18, 2012

Larry Sharp introduced Lou Monville, Vice Chair CSU Trustee, California State University system. California State University is the largest university system in the nation conferring over 99,000 degrees last year.  CSU related expenditures create more than $17 billion in economic activity and sustain more than 150,000 jobs in California.  For every $1 the state invests in CSU they return $5.43 to the California economy. 

A CSU graduate will pay 3 times the amount of state personal income tax over their lifetime compared to a California high school graduate. 

The student population is of 427,000, of which 96% are in-state students. CSU grants more than one half of all undergraduate degrees to California’s Latino, African American and Native American students.  Some 90% of all their students transfer in from California Community Colleges.  To their credit, nearly half of the students are engaged in community service totaling 32 million hours annually with a projected economic impact of $684 million. 

The CSU historical budget reflects that until 2002 state allocations to CSU ran very close to their expenditures for full time students. Since that time enrollment has jumped but state allocations became flat and then dramatically dropped.  Currently there is a $510 million revenue gap.  The following cuts have been made:

         Negotiated 2009-10 furloughs

         Managed enrollment down (limiting access)

         Decreased total employees by over 3,000

         Deferred maintenance on classrooms, labs and other facilities (system-wide deferred maintenance     backlog is now $1.7 billion)

         Restricted travel, equipment purchases

         Eliminated state-supported summer school at most campuses

         Students pay “full-freight” cost of those courses

         Increased tuition fees 

The CSU structural budget deficit created by state cuts cannot be resolved by tuition increases alone.  The Board of Trustees are exploring synergies and shared services.  CSU is eliminating unnecessary duplication and combining common efforts across campuses.  They are also reviewing academic and athletic programs in addition to eliminating low demand programs in accordance with existing policy – a systematic and consultative process. 

Since the passage of Prop 30 many ongoing challenges remain and include:

         Tuition increases

         Reducing employee salary and benefit costs (including Legislative fix to rising health care cost issue)

         Reducing faculty assigned/release time and increasing workload

         Improving access to courses, implementing course repeat fees, streamlining general education requirements

         Expanding access via technology (Cal State Online)

         Increasing nonresident tuition

         Using one-time funds, including Continuing Ed 

In the future, demand for the CSU will continue to increase with California’s growing population.  There must be continued increase in college readiness of incoming freshmen and improved access and use of technology to deliver programs.  Continued support is needed to maintain current federal Pell Grants that assist many of the CSU students who are future California assets. 

A Q & A period followed. 

Meeting adjourned at 8:35 a.m.