The Lumberjack



Students Serving The Cal Poly Humboldt Campus and Community Since 1929

Tag: Deficit

  • Cal Poly Humboldt faces possible $8 million budget deficit next school year

    By Griffin Mancuso

    Cal Poly Humboldt may be faced with an $8 million budget deficit in the 2024-2025 school year. 

    At an Associated Students meeting on Feb. 9, Provost Jenn Capps and University Budget Office Director Amber Blakeslee gave a presentation on the university’s estimated budget and how they plan to address it.

    Beyond Cal Poly Humboldt, the entire CSU system is faced with budget constraints. Each year, the state governor puts out a proposed budget for the CSU system. After months of discussion and advocacy, the governor publishes a revised budget in May, which is then finalized in June. Currently, the 2024-2025 proposed budget for California projects a $38 billion deficit. CSU campuses get most of their funds from the state budget and funds are distributed based on enrollment.

    However, the governor and the CSU system have an agreement where their portion of state funding will increase by 5% every year, provided that the campuses continue meeting their student success outcomes. Because of the current deficit California is facing, the planned $240 million base increase will be delayed by a year and paid back retroactively. There is a chance that funding won’t be available for the 2025-2026 school year, so the CSU system is trying to redivide its funding among over-enrolled and under-enrolled schools.

    “The system is sort of reshuffling, so for campuses that were under-enrolled, [that means] reducing the targets, which means reducing funding and shifting that to campuses that are above target,” Blakeslee said. “And so for our campus, we’re going to have our target reduced by 3% next year, which means 3% of the funding will pull back as well, so it’s about a $2 million impact to our campus that we need to navigate as part of budget planning.”

    While the university’s revenue is increasing, expenses are increasing at a faster rate. For the 2024-2025 school year, the university is expecting funding from the state, the 6% tuition increase, enrollment, and California Polytechnic funding, totaling at $170 million. The deficit from compensation and benefits, financial aid, and other costs are estimated to reach $178 million.

    Blakeslee described how budget planning for the campus looks at three different scenarios for enrollment, including a baseline scenario, the best case scenario, and worst case scenario. The baseline enrollment increase projected for next year is 2.6%.

    “As a campus, we’re actively working toward ambitious growth,” Blakeslee said. “From a budget standpoint, we are conservatively planning but watching closely because we want to make sure that we are proactively supporting and growing capacity where needed as we realize the growth, but we also don’t want to spend it before it happens.”

    Carla Ho’ā, the interim Chief Financial Officer and Vice President of Finance and Administration, emphasized the university’s priority being the student population and minimizing negative effects when making budget cuts.

    “Financial resiliency is another aspect of this,” Ho’ā said. “It can be tempting at times to make short-term decisions that have long-term, and sometimes negative, consequences. [We’re] really needing to be thoughtful and looking out into the future and about the financial resiliency of the university for the long-term, like having sustainable decisions built into the process.”

    When deciding where to allocate funds for Academic Affairs, Capps collaborates with the department heads of the colleges, the library dean, and other areas to share strategies and distribute funding. She said that the university hopes to provide more opportunities for student collaboration in the future.

    “What has been asked in a lot of different spaces is, ‘Hey folks, could you share with the campus community what ideas you generate, what potential opportunities you might be going after, before you actually do it?’” Capps said. “So that you all know what we’re considering, what we’re thinking about, and potentially have a shot to weigh in.”

    Capps also said that the University Resources and Planning Committee – a part of the University Senate with representatives from faculty, staff administration and students – is hoping to hold a public forum at least once a semester. The URPC has two seats reserved for student representation and is responsible for drafting a budget proposal for the university president.

    The URPC budget recommendation will be finalized next April. The presentation encouraged students to provide input and engage with AS, administration, and other representative student communities. Several positions in AS are currently open, such as Environmental Sustainability Officer, Public Relations Officer, and college representatives. Elections for AS will be made public on March 6. For more information on the university budget and upcoming elections, you can visit the URPC and AS websites.

    https://associatedstudents.humboldt.edu/
    https://budget.humboldt.edu/urpc
  • News Recap: HSU Budget

    News Recap: HSU Budget

    The Humboldt State University budget proposal is under overview from President Jackson

    What?

    The University Resources Planning Committee of Humboldt State University submitted its budget proposal to HSU President Tom Jackson on Dec. 23, 2019. The URPC spent last semester meeting each week to form a new budget to address a projected $5.4 million budget deficit for the next three fiscal years.

    The proposal includes $2,500,000 of cuts from instruction, $720,000 of cuts from academic support, $420,000 from student services, $1,070,000 from institutional support and $690,000 from operations and maintenance of plant.

    The total cuts amount to 4.4% of the total budget. The cuts would equal 4.4% of the instruction, academic support and operations and maintenance of plant budgets, 3.5% of the student services budget and 4.9% of the institutional support budget. The proposal must be approved by Jackson to come into effect.

    When?

    The URPC discussed the proposal in the University Senate Jan. 28, and will discuss it again Feb. 11., according to URPC Co-Chair James Woglom.

    Why?

    The budget deficit stems from HSU’s enrollment decline. Less tuition makes for a smaller budget. When Woglom spoke with The Lumberjack previously, he noted that the URPC has designed a scalable budget model, or a budget that allows HSU to be more flexible with its money as the University’s priorities change. Despite the cuts, Woglom assured The Lumberjack that the URPC was seeking to limit any negative impacts on students’ education. Thus far, HSU has publicly announced plans to phase out employees only through attrition, or not rehiring select employees, rather than outright cutting positions.

    See more of the HSU Budget here.

  • Humboldt State University budget crisis

    Humboldt State University budget crisis

    Humboldt State University held an open budget forum on Feb. 2 to discuss the threatening budget situation that could put the university in a potential crisis.

    Shortly after the forum, HSU President Lisa Rossbacher sent a message to the campus community:

    “In short, HSU’s budget situation has worsened over the course of this year due primarily to ongoing deficit spending in some areas, unfunded increases in salary and benefits, a continued decline in enrollment and projections based on the recent state budget for 2018-19 proposed by the governor,” Rossbacher said.

    Rossbacher wanted students, faculty and staff to take away a few things from the budget forum.

    First, a sense of the position that we’re in and the history of how we got here. Rossbacher wanted to make clear that it’s not anyone’s fault. This crisis has been ongoing from decisions made 10 to 30 years ago.

    “I want people to understand the situation that we’re in, the importance of working as a community to address it and solve the problems now,” Rossbacher said. “All of us that were involved in the discussions and planning are acutely aware of the impact the decisions will have on people… employees, potentially on students.”

    “We’re trying to do this with care and compassion,” Rossbacher said.

    Beth Eschenbach is the chair of environmental resources and engineering. She doesn’t quite know how the budget cuts will affect her.

    “I think everybody is afraid of saying what they’re really going to do,” Eschenbach said. “What I fear, they keep telling the academic side to save money, but the only way to save money is to teach fewer classes.”

    Zack Pitnick, environmental studies major, is a senior at HSU. He was one of the three students that showed up to the budget forum.

    Pitnick decided to come to the forum after hearing about it from his environmental studies professor. Pitnick wanted more of a student input in the discussion.

    “There needs to be a lot more transparency and [student] involvement,” Pitnick said. “I think there still does need to be cuts to higher up faculty salary. If they are so focused on this budget deficit, that should be the first thing to start instead of the very last resort.”

    Alex Enyedi, provost and vice president for Academic Affairs for Humboldt State, described the financial crisis in a nutshell.

    “It’s a simple overspending of the budget, and the next steps are to identify and trim back where spending is too much,” Enyedi said. “For example, we’ve got certain areas where we’re deficit spending, so we need to stop the deficit spending and that will help us with our budget.”

    Enyedi went on to say the problem is solvable, but it’s going to take combined efforts to solve.

    “It’s not the students’ problem,” Enyedi said. “It’s the administration, the staff and faculty’s responsibility to figure this out and we’re on it. This is a high priority, [and] we don’t have sufficient reserved dollars to be able to keep on covering the deficit spending.”

     

  • Universities should model accountability

    Universities should model accountability

    The sudden retirement of HSU Athletics Director Daniel Collen raises unanswered questions of accountability. How did administrative oversight fail to anticipate and mitigate Athletics’ budget crisis threatening the football program? Did Mr. Collen’s political campaign and election to the Northern Humboldt School District Board interfere with directing the athletics department? Did Mr. Collen hold appropriate academic credentials for a top university post? (Does his replacement?).

    Did Collen negotiate a secret settlement to immediately retire after facing lawsuits alleging misappropriation of donations for his fishing trips to Ketchikan, Alaska with two other HSU executives; or, the lawsuit by long-term HSU athletics employee Dan Pambianco alleging he was demoted for exposing Collen’s extravagant university-funded travel; or, Collen’s termination of 25-year track coach Dave Wells resulting in a $250,000 settlement?

    Apparently, no reforms were enacted since the infamous $15 million fraud committed by HSU executive John Sterns in 2001, and the secret settlement from the class-action lawsuit filed by Education Department professors. Following these scandals, former HSU President Alistair McCrone negotiated a retirement settlement by accepting a temporary “consultant” position at his full president’s salary. Sterns’ immediate supervisor, Vice President Don Christensen, became a university administrator in Oregon. (CSU auditors concluded that HSU’s fearful workplace enabled Stern’s financial fraud and embezzlement to continue for 3 years!).

    Humboldt County has extraordinary recreational resources: rivers, forests, shoreline, parks, trails, lagoons, harbor and wetlands, yet, McCrone and former HSU president Rollin Richmond authorized hundreds of millions of dollars over 2 decades on new and remodeled facilities for recreation, leisure, entertainment and sports, requiring more staff, faculty, management and maintenance while simultaneously cutting academics. Expanded leisure activities attracted wealthier students despite high participation fees… until a declining economy persuaded families to rediscover the value of academics closer to home, leaving HSU today with fewer students and a fully funded “resort.”

    Divesting in HSU academics produced overcrowded classrooms; elimination of numerous courses and entire degrees in nursing, industrial technology and German language; early retirement of the most experienced professors; the highest athletics fees in the CSU system; and three decades of relentless tuition increases culminating in debilitating debt for graduates. HSU’s high-security “campus resort” with pretentious locked-gate housing, rock climbing walls and library lattes are the LAST things needed by hundreds of homeless students (and thousands more working-class) who rely on administrative leadership to focus on relevant academic resources required to succeed.

    The public deserved to hear responses to unasked questions of accountability from Collen, Richmond, McCrone, Christensen and many others.

    Prioritizing accessible academics over a class-centered resort is essential in preparing graduates for the looming realities of environmental, economic and social crises from climate change and perpetual wars for foreign oil, minerals and oppressed labor. Achieving carbon reduction and full employment from a green, U.S.-made economy would require prerequisites in urban planning and social, political, economic and environmental activism tailored to every degree. These include prerequisites in citizenship, labor history, contract law, diplomacy and negotiation that are fundamental in developing confidence and assertiveness within student’s chosen career; in demanding accountability at work, school, community and personal relationships, or in signing countless contracts for housing, employment, transportation, credit cards and healthcare.

    Accountability at HSU requires transparency. For example, administrator’s academic credentials, compensation and pensions are not being reported. In fact, HSU cancelled publication of its annual directory listing everyone working on campus and their titles. Incompetence, nepotism, favoritism, fraud and corruption, like mycelium, thrive in darkness and costs millions!

    The Bay Area firm Strategic Edge Consulting, hired by HSU last year, noted communication problems between former HSU Athletics director Collen and other departments raising broader questions about campus leadership and professionalism. Few ironies are more astonishing than a public university led by administrators lacking advanced degrees in public administration or communication who are charged with promoting and governing “academic excellence” for teachers and students. A credible vision for academic excellence could come from administrators recruited from hundreds of adults graduating with honors on U.C. campuses each year with advanced degrees in public administration, public finance and human resources; individuals more capable in avoiding budget chaos and recurring failures to integrate due-process employment rights into personnel practices. Until then, HSU’s lack of vision and its history of unaccountable multi-million dollar scandals, lawsuits and secret settlements will continue.

    Without basic skills, experiences, and responsibility in demanding accountability where we live, work and learn, every community’s local government, university and media will continue to cooperate, legitimize and empower this nation’s fascist drift that Donald Trump’s reelection and “Alt-Right” policies rely on.

     

    Sincerely,

    George Clark

    HSU Liberal Arts graduate 1982,

    (My debt-free education met the requirement for an “accessible public education” guaranteed under the U.S. Education Act of 1965).

    HSU Center Accounting Technician 1979-1989

     

  • Defeating deficits and defunding students

    Defeating deficits and defunding students

    By | The Lumberjack Editorial Board

    When the word deficit gets tossed about in a college environment, you already know that the students are going to get the raw end of the deal once it’s time to make up for losses.

    One of HSU’s greatest marketing tools is that they can advertise affordability over other campuses. With a plan that implements a 5 percent tuition fee increase by fall 2017 and $5 billion cut to higher education in the proposed 2018 federal budget, the cost of education for the Humboldt State student is rising. Students can’t afford to handle the consequences of a $6 million budget deficit.


    There are two problems with the University Resources and Planning Committee’s [URPC] plan to balance the budget. Phase one and Phase two. Both phases are set to make students suffer.


    Phase one is an $800,000 cut from personnel. These cuts are no doubt going to start with eliminating student jobs. Outside of the Humboldt State [HSU] campus, finding a job in the small town communities of Humboldt County is near impossible.

    Student workers depend on HSU to provide accessible jobs. Dismissing student jobs will devastate the student economy. Not only are university employers more willing to accept first-time job seekers, the faculty and administration understand the stress of maintaining a student schedule that outside employers don’t.


    Although the athletics department accounts for nearly $1 million of the deficit, the UPRC hasn’t yet revealed a plan to fix athletics budget. A monitoring system for athletics has been put in place by President Rossbacher, however no concrete changes to athletics have been proposed. Colleges glorify the sports life and hesitate to make budget cuts to a department that draws in money.


    However, the athletics department carves out a big chunk of the deficit, and yet, the administration is quick to cut funds to our student financial support and academic programs. The URPC’s phase two is a tentative plan set to cut funds from instructional/academic colleges, student services, administration costs, and Information Technologies.


    We have eight years of an increasing deficit, a growing student housing crisis, and rising issues of food insecurity: And HSU wonders why there is a declining student enrollment rate.

    HSU administration may not want to comment on the challenges facing our university, but students are smart enough to do the research, and it is evident that our college is in need of a reality check.

     

  • HSU faces $6 million budget deficit

    HSU faces $6 million budget deficit

    By | Andrew George Butler

    The who’s who of Humboldt State University gathered on April 4 at 10 a.m. to discuss the University’s budget deficit. The meeting was lead by the University Resources and Planning Committee, a sub-committee made up from HSU administrators, faculty, and students. The committee, known as URPC, works as a conduit between the CSU main office and HSU’s administration to help address and deal with budget issues.

    The URPC first addressed a charge made by Lisa Rossbacher, who was absent from the meeting. Rossbacher called for the URPC to balance the 2017-2018 budget, identify solutions to the recent drop in enrollment, and create a two-year plan for HSU’s budget. This plan is split into two phases.

    Phase one will take effect this coming year and will save HSU $1 million over the next year. Phase one will draw 83 percent, or about $800,000 from personnel cuts. Phase two will not be set in stone until the end of October, this year. However, URPC has discussed areas of the university open to cuts. Possible phase 2 cuts may include: $1 million from the Instructional/academic colleges, $250,000 from Student Services, $400,000 from Administrational costs, and $400,000 from Informational Technologies.

    HSU will face its eighth consecutive year of deficit spending. The deficit is expected to grow by $500,000 during the 2017-2018 year, to a staggering $6 million. In addition to a growing deficit, HSU is expected to see its second consecutive year of decreased enrollment; roughly 3.5 percent less students are expected to attend HSU during the 2017-2018 year.

    Furthermore, HSU expects to be 543 students short of its expected 7,603 Full Time Equivalent Student Enrollment, set by the CSU main office. Failing to reach this threshold could result in further cuts to HSU’s funding.

    The budget deficit continued to grow even as HSU’s enrollment rose during the first half of this decade. HSU simply spends too much money per student, and a solution to HSU’s budget deficit will include cuts to how much money is spent on each student’s education during their time at HSU according to URPC. HSU spent $15,810 per student during the 2015-2016 year. The average amount of money spent per student for other small CSU schools during that year was $14,339. Matching the CSU average would save HSU $5.7 million a year.

    These potential budget cuts will occur during Rossbacher’s new graduation initiative. The initiative calls for a doubling of HSU’s current graduation rate by 2025. This includes bringing underrepresented minority students and student beneficiaries of the Pell Grant graduation rate to even with the rest of HSU. UPRC did not explain how Rossbacher’s graduation initiative would coincide with budget cuts that affect students.

    Mark Rizzardi, faculty co-chair on the URPC, led much of Tuesday’s budget discussion. At the conclusion of the meeting Rizzardi said, “all the low hanging fruit has been picked, so it’s time to cut.”

    The URPC only briefly addressed the nearly $1 million athletic department deficit, and did not discuss any possible cuts to athletics. Read The Lumberjack next week for an in-depth look into the athletics deficit and the future of HSU athletics.

    *This story has been edited to fix the correct date for the meeting. From March 4 to April 4.

  • HSU Student Athletes on How Budget Cuts Can Effect Them

    HSU Student Athletes on How Budget Cuts Can Effect Them

    By | Keaundrey Clark