The worst element of the pending budget proposal, officials said at a campus rally Feb. 13, is a ‘spending’ cap that would lock the CSU and Humboldt State into a permanent fiscal shortfall. The cap would apply to funding for institutions, including the CSU, financed by California’s general fund.
Press reports indicate the CSU would face a 10 percent reduction in Fiscal 2009/2010 under the controversial blueprint now the subject of intense negotiations in Sacramento. That translates to a $312 million loss in the current fiscal year, 2008/2009, and $66 million the following year, which starts July 1.
President Rollin Richmond said HSU has saved central resources to pay for about a five per cent cut, but only in Fiscal 2009/2010. “If this continues into the future,” he said, “we will have to reduce base budget expenditures.” This year alone, the university has given back $1.85 million, and Humboldt State is entering its seventh year of consecutive reductions.
Depending on outcomes in Sacramento, HSU will have to slash its spending next year by at least $813,000. More than half, $427,000, would come out of Academic Affairs, further limiting course availability, increasing class sizes and stretching out graduation rates. As time-to-graduation has ballooned, student fees have soared 130 percent.
Sofia Pereira, Associated Students president and an orientation counselor for three years, told the rally, “The hardest thing is that you get students excited to come to Humboldt State and then the first thing they have to deal with are all these stresses of ‘I can’t get classes, I don’t know if I can get housing, I don’t know if I can afford to live here, I don’t know if my financial aid checks are going to come in. Students are so excited about the college experience, but they’re already stressing out, [asking], ‘Is this even going to work out for me, am I going to make it past this orientation session and registering for classes?’ That’s a real problem.”