Sacramento State?s Faculty Senate reiterated its stance on the ongoing contract negotiations between California State University and the California Faculty Association Thursday, passing a resolution in support of the CFA.

The resolution states that the CFA contract proposals “advance the interests of the faculty and the students of the CSU” and that the CSU administration “has proved obstinately inflexible in past bargaining.” It was approved by an overwhelming majority and the contract negotiations began April 12.

Senate member and economics professor Peter Lund said Sac State should follow the lead of other CSU schools, which recently have made statements of no confidence in Chancellor Charles Reed. He referred to statements Reed made in the May 9 edition of The State Hornet, in which the chancellor disputed the CFA?s claims that CSU has only one tenure track position over the past five years, as “lies.”

“Our chancellor is a poor administrator,” Lund said, “having alienated his workers, the faculty.”

Civil engineering professor Don Nostrant said several issues need to be addressed in the negotiations, including the improvement of the ratio of tenure track to lecturers and better management of faculty compensation funds. He said much of the money in the fund has been spent on other areas.

“We know that at least $17 million was spent on things other than employee compensation,” Nostrant said.

Many senate members have spoken in support of the CFA in the past, and at its Feb. 15 meeting the senate passed two resolutions regarding Faculty Merit Increases, one of the larger issues in the ongoing negotiations.

Also at the meeting, senate members defeated a motion to ask the Executive Committee to look into the possibility of creating a graduation requirement for math proficiency, much like the writing proficiency exam does for assessing writing skills. If passed, the committee would have looked at the possibility of devising an exam or setting a minimum course requirement for math, said Senate Chair Bob Buckley.

“What we?re trying to get is a statement which says, ?go ahead and do something with this,?” Buckley said.