The May 19 special election will leave Californians, including Sacramento State students, in charge of deciding how to resolve the state budget crisis.

Many students have expressed uncertainty about the issues they’ll be voting on. The confusion prompted the California Faculty Association to host a teach-in on Monday in the Hinde Auditorium. The teach-in was split into two sessions and educated the public – mainly students and faculty – about Proposition 1A and the California State University system’s budget situation.

Prop. 1A, also known as the Budget Stabilization Act, would limit future deficits and spending by increasing the state’s “rainy day fund.” The act would require more than the usual amount of revenue to be deposited into the fund and used during economic downturns.

“It’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing,” said Lila Jacobs, president of the Sac State chapter of the CFA. Jacobs said Prop. 1A would freeze the university’s budget size, without funding levels increasing, should the economy improve.

“It’s a false promise, and that’s why I’m against it,” Jacobs said. “I don’t think it’s good for students. I don’t think it’s good for education?it would be very disastrous.”

Jacobs said teach-ins have played a significant role in the course of modern history, particularly during the Vietnam War era.

“They definitely were a big deal in the ’60s, because people were against the war, but they didn’t know how the United States wound up in the war,” Jacobs said.

Jacobs said teach-ins are a great way for people to become knowledgeable on the general background of issues affecting them.

“In 50 minutes, you can get a beginning overview of the process. I think it can be very helpful to people,” Jacobs said.

Kimberly Nalder, government professor, was one of three lecturers at the teach-in. Nalder said the teach-in was important for the public to learn about the upcoming election because the related issues are detailed and complex.

“We expect people who are not specialists to make very complex decisions, and it’s very unlikely that any of us will come to the table with enough proper information to make a good decision,” Nalder said.

Nalder said Prop. 1A could be considered a political paradox because of its very nature. She explained that if Prop. 1A passed, it would limit the funding for CSU campuses and programs to earlier funding levels.

“These projections are based on what we’ve been doing in recent years,” Nalder said. “We could potentially be locking in these ‘lower-than-some-people-would-like’ amounts.”

This would mean that if a department required an increase in funds to continue its services, it would either have to find money elsewhere, or make cutbacks in other areas within. Since $600 million was lost from the CSU budget between 2002 and 2004, it would be difficult for those programs to make up those differences.

“On one hand, voters always want lower taxes, and on the other hand voters always want continued services or an increase of services,” Nalder said. “The legislators are the only ones who have to actually choose between those things.”

She said legislators have to compromise and agree on which budget issues to prioritize, but this can be difficult because of how polarized both major political parties have become.

Nalder said the state income fluctuates from year to year depending on people’s incomes. She said part of the budget’s unpredictability is because items must have a two-thirds majority vote in the Legislature to pass.

CFA members are also troubled that if Prop. 1A passes, the governor will be able to make mid-year budget cuts of up to 7 percent on unprotected areas of the state’s General Fund, including the CSU.

“The governor would have new powers to take money out of particular sorts of budgets,” Nalder said, including cost of living increases for social programs. “He could actually just cut at will without going through the legislature.”

John Travis, chair of the CFA Bargaining Committee, urged attendees to vote in the election and said Prop. 1A is such an important issue that it is the only proposition in which the CFA has taken an official position.

Ana Rosales, senior ethnic studies major, said the teach-in helped give her a clear understanding of the budget and how rainy day funds function.

“The wording on (Prop. 1A is) really confusing and even people that study politics can’t understand themselves on what it’s proposing,” Rosales said.

A student intern for the CFA, Rosales said her biggest task has been getting the student body to register to vote in the election. She said many students are still unaware there is an upcoming election.

“The people that are going to start retiring pretty soon within the next five, 10 years are going to depend on us,” Rosales said. “If we’re not producing educated students where are we going to get people to run companies, how to teach? So for me, just cutting away from our funding, it’s not at all the solution.”

Rosales said the CSU system is the largest university system in the country and Sac State is one of the most productive in terms of producing legislators.

“You go over in there to the legislators and you ask them, ‘What’s your educational background?’ and I can guarantee you that a good chunk of them are out of the CSU,” Rosales said.

Rosales said she is afraid the public will get shafted if Prop. 1A passes and stressed the importance of student power to sway public policy by voting on May 19.

“We are the voters, we are the ones that at the end make the decision whether these propositions pass or not.”

Julia Baum can be reached at [email protected].