California’s gloomy economic situation is raising fears that the state could make large cuts to the California State University system’s funding in future budgets.

Lila Jacobs, president of the California Faculty Association chapter at Sacramento State and professor of education, said that the government has a responsibility to protect higher education because like the banking system, it is an investment in the future.

“If they can support banks that are in crisis, why can’t they support a university that’s in crisis?” She said.

Signs of the economic crisis are already beginning to emerge. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has indicated that he wants the state legislature to convene in December for a special session to reevaluate the current budget, in light of declining state revenues. This could mean additional cuts to the CSU system.

In an e-mail sent to students and faculty from CSU Chancellor Charles Reed on Oct. 23, Reed said that the state was cutting $31.3 million from the current CSU budget as a response to declining revenues. Reed said that revenues going to the state were already $1 billion below earlier projections. A special session of the legislature could add additional cuts.

The Alliance for the CSU, a coalition of student groups, faculty and staff unions, administrators and California businesses, is planning further efforts this year to minimize these cuts. The group held rallies last spring and organized a march on the Capitol building. Campus officials widely credit the alliance with helping avoid some of the more draconian cuts that could have been made in the current state budget, which was passed late on Sept. 23. With the economy showing signs of a prolonged downturn, Jacobs said they are realizing that the group will be needed for a long time.

The CFA held roundtable discussions on Oct. 22 in an attempt to bring together more student organizations and raise awareness of budget issues. They discussed how budget cuts affected students and others they knew.

Gabriel Long, sophomore communication studies major, said he thought students he works with in the Cooper Woodson College Enhancement Program were generally aware, but he worried that the larger student body was more apathetic since many are occupied with commutes and jobs.

Jay Gill said that the communication studies class he is taking is overcrowded and he sees signs of a negative effect on students’ education. “Sometimes they don’t show up at all because they don’t want to sit on the floor,” he said.

Criminal justice professor Cecil Canton blamed state Republicans for blocking a tax increase earlier this year to increase funding for higher education. Instead, the CSU system increased student fees, which he equated to a tax on students. This was “unacceptable,” he said. CFA cited the California Master Plan for Higher Education. Released in 1960, the document called for “tuition free” education for residents. Schools have collected student fees instead, at levels comparable to tuition.

“This education is not a privilege,” Canton said. “It is a right.” He praised the alliance for bringing together different groups and said they had to work together to prevent the quality of education from being chipped away. He said the faculty union understands how important this is and would work for it.

The group’s indignation at the continued cuts, which have caused student fees to rise 114 percent over the past five years, will have to be channeled into public outreach. Jacobs compared the group to student activism in the 1970s protesting the Vietnam War.

“I think students have more power than they know that they have,” she said.

Jacobs said that the Alliance for the CSU or CFA did not have a position on how the state should solve its chronic funding problems. Rather, it encouraged members to influence public policy by writing their legislators and campaigning against lawmakers that seek to cut higher education funding.

“We elect people to office, and some people are friendlier to higher education and willing to use money to invest in higher education, and some people are not,” Jacobs said.

The governor’s office will release preliminary information about the upcoming budget in January. In May, revisions are released based on projections from revenues the state is receiving and the extent of proposed cuts becomes clearer.

The Chancellor’s Office decides how much will be cut from each of the 23 CSU campuses. Then local efforts take over. Sac State has a University Budget Advisory Committee, where representatives of the faculty and the administration issue recommendations on how to distribute the cuts. Then Sac State President Alexander Gonzalez decides whether to implement the proposals.

Math professor Scott Farrand has served on the budget committee since its inception several years ago. He said that while cutting spending is always difficult, the committee’s existence provides a level of transparency not seen at all CSU campuses.

He said that rather than set the committee up as a mouthpiece of the president’s office, Gonzalez allows them sufficient time and resources to make their own recommendations. Farrand said they have yet to have serious disagreements with Gonzalez since he has representatives at their meetings who are able to reach compromises.

“We construct budget recommendations,” he said. “They aren’t handed to us.”

Stephen Perez, assistant to the president for special projects, is taking over as chair of the committee this year from Jose Emir Macari, dean of the college of engineering and computer science. He said that the committee considers all options when trying to cut the budget but was not sure what would happen this year.

“We know what this year’s budget is right now and that’s what we’re working off of,” Perez said. “To try to speculate on what we’re going to do would be premature.”

Provost Joseph Sheley said that the consistent budget cuts have created a predictable response.

“Obviously there will be an outcry,” he said. He said students needed to break what has become a cycle of paying attention to CSU funding levels only when large cuts are planned. This mentality is “reactive,” he said.

He said students needed to stay informed about what the issues are and how they are affected. This gives them more credibility when voicing their opinions to people in power.

“The one thing you don’t want is to be dismissed as uninformed and naive,” Sheley said.

To break this pattern, earlier this year the CFA started talking to classes about what the late budget meant for them and how they can get involved with the alliance.

Sheley said that raised issues of appropriate use of class time, but was well-intentioned. “Whether or not that’s the appropriate vehicle is to be debated, but the desire to give you the information and your desire to have it is more than appropriate,” Sheley said.

Kevin Wehr, sociology professor and vice president of the Sac State CFA chapter, said that campus officials would have a tough time making unpopular cuts. “We’re going to have to remain nimble, we’re going to have to remain flexible and hopefully we can achieve some sort of a balance,” he said.

Sam Pearson can be reached at [email protected]