Cal State LA community to fight the cuts to instruction
Sign the petition today; Lecturers' Handbook; Call for Nominations
Dear Faculty Colleagues,
As we enter Week 11 of the Fall semester, we continue to learn more about the $32 million deficit that President Eanes announced in July 2024. We have since received two further updates about the budget situation from Claudio Lindow, Interim VP for Administration and Finance, that outline the problem in greater detail. In addition to the cuts already imposed in Fall 2024, President Eanes’ administration plans another 12.4% cut for Spring 2025, and a hiring freeze, except for it seems, members of upper management.
Sign this Cal State LA Petition to Fight the Cuts to Instruction
Administrators across the CSU are using a delay in one-time additional state funding to impose draconian cuts, even though the Governor will reimburse the system in 2025-2026. At this time, the delay may well present budgetary challenges for the CSU system and our campus. However, the true “crisis” is not this funding delay, rising inflation, modest raises for faculty and staff, or sluggish enrollments, as President Eanes and VP Lindow suggest. Rather, the real crisis is deliberate and disastrous financial choices by CSU administrators and long-term disinvestment in public education by state lawmakers. Those choices must be rectified if our campus and university system are to navigate our current financial and enrollment challenges and fulfill its mission as the People's University.
A Manufactured Crisis?
Don’t be fooled, colleagues: this is a manufactured crisis. To put it plainly, the CSU has the money to cover the funding delay. They’ve just decided to invest in managers and investment portfolios rather than fulfill the CSU’s mission to provide quality, affordable, and accessible public higher education. Let's examine some facts:
Historical surpluses and cash hoarding: According to an analysis by Eastern Michigan accounting professor, Dr. Howard Bunsis, from 2006 to 2023, the CSU ran annual surpluses in the hundreds of millions of dollars, including a $2.1 billion surplus in 2022 alone. Over that period, the University's cash and investments rose from $2.1 billion to $7.7 billion. If you include the system’s auxiliaries (e.g., CSUSB’s University Enterprises Corporation), the total hoarded was nearly $12 billion by 2022.
Current resources and liquidity: At the end of FY 23/24, the CSU had $3.6 billion in reserves and $8 billion in cash and investments. As Dr. Bunsis explains, most of the University’s reserves are unrestricted. Moreover, nearly half of the University's investments are in a "Liquidity Portfolio” the purpose of which is "to provide sufficient and immediate liquidity to meet the operating needs of the CSU."
Labor and student exploitation: As Dr. Bunsis argued, “These reserves have been built on [faculty and staffs’] backs … because they do not pay the employees what they should be paying them.” Meanwhile, the Board of Trustees has the audacity to raise tuition by 34% over the next 5 years. This will put a CSU education out of reach for many Californians and aggravate enrollment challenges.
Administrative bloat and exorbitant compensation: The CSU does pony up when it comes to new administrative roles and management pay. Chancellor Mildred García enjoys a grotesque $1 million annual compensation package (more than three times that of Governor Newsom); campus presidents recently received up to 29% raises; and management compensation is up 32% since 2016. Meanwhile, administrative bloat persists. CSU administrative positions grew 15% from 2007 to 2015, and the budget of the Chancellor’s Office -- a campus with no students -- exploded from $96 million in 2014-15 to $208 million in 2023-24. That’s a 116% increase in just the past decade! This is managerial cronyism: the creation of an administrative class that lavishly rewards itself -- even those who resign amid scandals. All the while, faculty positions and pay have stagnated and the system increasingly relies on underpaid temporary faculty.
Austerity for the Rest of Us
To address this manufactured crisis, President Eanes proposes -- and has already begun implementing -- austerity measures that disproportionately impact faculty, students, and staff and undermine our university’s mission. These include:
Cal State LA’s Finances: Although President Eanes and VP Lindow have decried the terrible financial situation with a $32 million deficit, at the end of Spring 2023—President Covino’s last semester—our campus had a $49 million operating budget surplus and an $8 million surplus in auxiliary services. That is a significant contrast to the current claims of financial turmoil. It also amounts to an $81 million swing from 2023 to now. This discrepancy should raise critical questions about financial management and accountability within the university system.
Reduced course sections and increased class sizes: Even though Cal State LA heavily relies on the work of Lecturers, the administration canceled 12% of course sections in Fall 2024, resulting in many Lecturer faculty members losing their jobs and health care. For those faculty who remained, there was added pressure to increase enrollment caps to compensate for the lost sections. Invariably, this erodes Cal State LA's educational mission by forcing students onto large waiting lists or into larger classes with faculty with less time to support their learning. In Spring 2025, we expect another round of course cancellations, resulting in further job losses and more students struggling to find classes. President Eanes and her Cabinet must rethink this strategy of drastic downsizing to not exacerbate enrollment challenges.
Hiring freeze: On September 23, 2024, VP Lindlow announced the implementation of a hiring freeze, which he claimed was a “necessary step” to “help us better realign our resources that prioritize student success and campus operations while also remaining fiscally sound.” The freeze came at a time when many departments and staff units were in the process of launching job searches to fill much needed positions. While the hiring of faculty or staff will only occur in the most “critically under-resourced areas,” the President did not hesitate to make interim administrative appointments or to relaunch the search for a Provost.
Other cuts not announced publicly: President Eanes prides herself as being open and transparent. In comparison to her predecessor, she has communicated with the campus much better. However, there are a couple of important areas where administrators are demanding cuts without announcing them widely: The reduction or elimination of S-factor (4990) and program and department restructuring. Although cutbacks to these areas are definitely taking place, none of the email announcements or the “Financial Transparency” website say anything about them.
Reclaiming "the People's University"
In the 1960s, the CSU earned a reputation as "the People's University" by providing Californians with affordable, accessible, and high-quality education. Indeed, for the generation that is now the University’s senior leadership, tuition was free. However, in recent decades, state funding per CSU student has plummeted, and students have had to shoulder more and more of the system's financial burden via tuition and fees. Just this past year, the Board of Trustees imposed 6% tuition increases on students for the next five years. This shift coincided with the CSU student body’s demographic diversification, leading Sacramento State Professor Cecil Canton to astutely observe, "As the student body of the CSU became darker, funding became lighter.
By further hiking tuition and implementing austerity measures—while sitting on massive reserves and investments—today’s CSU leadership is putting the nail in the coffin of the University's public service mission. Instead, they have adopted a morally bankrupt, neoliberal management model that creates a vicious cycle: tuition increases and disinvestment from teaching and learning exacerbate enrollment challenges, which administrators then point to to justify further cuts. This compromises the CSU's promise as an engine for state-wide innovation and social mobility.
We call on the CSU administration and state lawmakers to reverse course before it's too late:
Transparent, Responsible Resource Allocation: We demand full transparency of university finances, including the auxiliaries at all CSU campuses; a stop to wasteful administrative bloat and exorbitant compensation; and reinvestment of the system’s unrestricted billions in the CSU’s core operations: teaching, learning, scholarship, and service. After all, that’s what taxpayers and students pay for -- not managers and mutual funds.
Advocacy for Fully Funded Public Higher Education: CSU trustees and administrators must join faculty, staff, and students in demanding that state lawmakers fully fund California public higher education. Only then can the CSU realize its mission of accessible, affordable, high-quality education. If CSU leadership can't make this case effectively, or if state lawmakers won’t implement it, they should be replaced by those who can and will.
Solidarity, Engagement, and Resistance: Faculty, staff, students, and community members must all stand together against damaging tuition hikes and austerity measures, as well as infringements on our freedom of expression, such as the University's draconian and doubtlessly unconstitutional new “Time, Place, and Manner” policy. By raising our collective voices and resisting unjust policies and practices, we can preserve and create the University that CSU administrators would see undone.
Together, we can challenge this manufactured crisis and work towards a CSU that truly prioritizes education, research, shared governance, and the well-being of its faculty, staff, and students. We must reclaim the CSU's mission as "the People's University" and ensure that it remains a source of uplift for all Californians, regardless of their background.
When we fight, we win -- not just for ourselves, but for our students and the soul of the CSU. Join us in this crucial effort to preserve and enhance the promise of California public higher education.
If you or someone you know is not already a proud CFA member, join here.
If you or someone you know wants to push back against these unnecessary and destructive cuts, sign this Cal State LA Petition to Fight the Cuts to Instruction.
In solidarity,
The CFA-LA Executive Board
Lecturers’ Handbook
“Every moment is an organizing opportunity, every person a potential activist, every minute a chance to change the world.” — Dolores Huerta
Lecturer faculty: do you have concerns or questions about your faculty rights and labor at Cal State LA? CFA has updated the Lecturers’ Handbook for 2024-25. The handbook can be found here: https://www.calfac.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Lecturers-Handbook-2022-2025-FINAL.pdf.
Now is the time to get informed! Join Leda Ramos and Molly Talcott for the next faculty RTP workshop for files due February 3, 2025 on Friday, 12/13 at 12 PM. Register here: https://calfac.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJItd-mqrDspG9x6m4fZe8_1Ws8YSPNpR4cl.