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Gov. Brown’s budget could raise CSU faculty, staff salaries

For the first time in six years, Cal State University faculty and staff may get a pay raise.

At the March CSU Board of Trustees meeting, the Committee on Finance proposed a plan of how to distribute the extra $125.1 million in state funding allocated to the CSU in Gov. Jerry Brown’s state budget proposal.

In its plan, the Committee on Finance allotted $38 million of Brown’s proposed funding increase to an employee compensation pool.

“This pool of money would have to go to the collective bargaining process,” CSU Spokesman Mike Uhlenkamp said. “There have been individuals who have gotten raises by promotions [in the past], but this is a [proposed] raise for all faculty and staff.”

According to the Committee on Finance’s March agenda, the proposed $38 million increase in faculty and staff compensation would result in an approximate 1.2 percent salary increase.

CSU staff and faculty have not received salary increases since 2007 and 2008, respectively, according to Uhlenkamp.

“Of course, the faculty haven’t received a raise in five years,” said Cal State Long Beach California Faculty Association President Teri Yamada. “Anything would be helpful, I hope [the raise] happens.”

Mathematics professor Mark Igolnikov said that the potential raise was long overdue.

“We deserve a raise,” Igolnikov said. “We have to go to large sections. Statistic classes are in three or four sections, depending fall or spring, [and] they each have 150 students instead of the regular 30. We’ve been really stressed here.”

In addition to salary raises, CSU officials said they would spend the remaining amount of Brown’s proposed budget increase on enrollment growth, student access and success initiatives, mandatory costs and redesigning “bottleneck” courses, according to the agenda.

The increase of $21.7 million allotted for enrollment growth in Brown’s budget proposal would likely result in enrolling 5,700 additional students in the CSU, according to the agenda.

“We’ve created enrollment targets that vary based on the campuses,” Uhlenkamp said.

According to the agenda, the allotment of mandatory costs, $48.2 million, will be directed toward employee health benefits and the upkeep of newly constructed buildings on CSU campuses.

According to CSU Spokesman Erik Fallis, the CSU is awaiting action from the state Legislature in May to see if Gov. Brown’s $125.1 million boost to the CSU budget will be approved.

“The May revise is a critical document for us,” Fallis said. “It takes all of the revenue numbers that have come in and all the projections that have changed, and it puts together a different budget.”

After the May revise, the Legislature is expected to pass a budget by mid-June, according to Fallis.

“Ultimately, it is up to policymakers to decide how much the state allocates to higher education,” Fallis said. “If they increase or reduce [funding], that means we have to change our budget planning accordingly.”
 

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