Sacramento State officials have called for deans of the university’s colleges to reduce their spending in response to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s proposed state budget cuts.

President Alexander Gonzalez and Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Joseph Sheley made the order after Schwarzenegger proposed a $312 million cut to the California State University system.

Sac State will face an estimated $10 million structural budget gap for the 2008-09 school year, Sheley said.

On advice from the University Budget Advisory Committee, Gonzalez and Sheley sent memorandums to Sac State’s vice presidents and deans to submit budget proposals for the 2008-09 and 2009-10 academic years to reduce seven of the university’s eight colleges’ budgets by 7 percent. The UBAC is made up of 12 members from administration, faculty, the student body and staff who advise the president and vice presidents on budget issues.

The 7 percent cuts could be spread over the two-year period, according to the memorandums. This means the budget reductions could be achieved by a 4 percent cut in 2008-09, followed by a 3 percent reduction in 2009-10.

Aside from being asked to make budget reductions that have the least effect on students, the deans were asked to look into other funding sources to meet their budget needs, including private donors, endowed chairs and grants from agencies like the National Science Foundation and the National Institute of Health, Lee said.

Sheley said the university cannot sit and wait around for outside sources to approach it with money – it won’t happen. Instead, the university itself needs to develop those sources, he said.

Budget reductions must conform to the university’s Strategic Plan. Its first goal is the recruitment, retention and graduation of students, said Mike Lee, associate vice president for Academic Affairs. The plan, which was last updated December 2007, is the administration’s guide to plan the university’s future.

Before the university can get serious about budget cuts, it must be serious in understanding students’ needs to access classes, Sheley said. If the university cannot offer students classes they need, it will not be able to retain them and have them graduate, he said.

If students walk away from the university, funding decreases and the ability to fund student needs decreases, Sheley said.

Lee said if a college removes courses or sections in one area, it must create the same number of seats for students in another area.

Students may be asked to rethink times when they are willing to take classes. The majority of students now take courses between 8 a.m. and 2 p.m., Lee said. Students will need to consider taking classes in the late afternoon and evenings when many classrooms are underutilized.

Sheley said the administration is not suggesting 2 p.m. classes become 8 p.m. classes. Instead, students may want to consider 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. when many people are still on campus.

Kevin Wehr, California Faculty Association Sac State chapter vice president, said he is worried that these solutions may lead to larger class sizes. If the number of sections of a class are reduced and replaced by larger class sizes, the quality of students’ education goes down, he said.

The CFA believes that steps other than budget cuts should be considered in order to lessen the impact of the state’s budget crisis on the CSU system.

CFA Sac State Chapter President Lila Jacobs said the budget cuts have not been made yet, nor are they set in stone. Now is the time to mobilize the stakeholders in the CSU system and mitigate the effects of the budget and get more funds for the university, she said.

The CFA is working with the campus community on a campaign to protect the CSU system’s funds.

Cutting education funds is the wrong thing to do in tough economic times, Jacobs said.

The CSU system educates 87 percent of the state’s teachers, 89 percent of its criminal justice professionals, 87 percent of its social workers, 64 percent of its nurses and 51 percent of its engineers, according to the CFA.

This is a unique opportunity for all of us to work together to protect the CSU system, Jacobs said.

Campus colleges have the option to use one-time “carry-over” funds, monies left over from the previous year’s budget, to shore up their budgets.

While the university is fortunate to have “carry-over” funds, it cannot be counted on for long periods of time, Lee said. They can be used over a short period of time to meet budget gaps, he said.

These funds are not replenished. Once they are spent, the money is gone, Sheley said. The colleges have been asked to identify “carry-over” funds for next year in their proposals.

The university worked over the past two years to bring spending in line with the budget and reduce its dependence on “carry-over” funds, he said.

The Sac State College of Continuing Education was not asked to reduce its budget by the university, because it is self-supporting. It does not receive its funding from the CSU system like the university’s seven other colleges, said Cristina Galeste, director of operations for the CCE.

It focuses on professional development and certificate programs. The CCE gets its funds from program fees and short-term contracts for training programs with state agencies like Caltrans and the California State Corrections and Rehabilitation Department, Galeste said.

This does not mean the CCE will not face budget problems of its own. It is dependent on the state budget situation, Galeste said. Statewide budget cuts will affect the money state agencies have to spend on training, she said.

The CCE is still waiting to see how the governor’s budget cuts will affect its programs, Galeste said.

Representatives from the Colleges of Arts and Letters, Business Administration, Education, Engineering and Computer Science, Health and Human Services, Natural Sciences and Mathematics, and Social Sciences and Interdisciplinary Studies declined to comment.

Todd Wilson can be reached at [email protected].