Analyst Says CSU Should Scrap Plans for New Campuses

SACRAMENTO —  An ambitious plan by California State University System officials to construct five new campuses should be scrapped because enrollment estimates are “unrealistically high,” state Legislative Analyst Elizabeth G. Hill told the Legislature on Wednesday.

She also criticized a pay raise for CSU’s chancellor and took a swipe at University of California expansion plans.

Hill, the Legislature’s highly influential nonpartisan budget adviser, made the assessments in a review of Gov. George Deukmejian’s proposed $53.7-billion state budget for the 1990-91 fiscal year.

The analysis confirmed an earlier assessment by the Department of Finance that Deukmejian’s budget is $1.9 billion short of what will be needed to maintain the current level of state services. But Hill offered no broad plan for closing the funding gap.

“There are no easy choices,” Hill told reporters during a briefing. “The main message is that services cannot be sustained with the level of revenues that are estimated to be available. Some service reductions will have to be taken by the Legislature in order to bring the budget into balance.”

Hill’s report proposed changes that would reduce the budget by only $83.6 million. Release of the exhaustive analysis, totaling 1,826 pages, is an annual tradition that kicks off months of budget hearings by the Legislature. Lawmakers have until June 15 to review, amend and return the budget to Deukmejian.

As for the proposed expansion of the state university system, Hill said during a Capitol news conference that “there currently is no demonstrated need to build new campuses.” Echoing a report made last month by the California Postsecondary Education Commission, she argued that the existing 19 CSU campuses “can be built out to accommodate enrollment” and that plans should proceed for the 20th campus now being built in San Marcos in northern San Diego County.

Last year, Hill criticized plans by the University of California to build three new campuses. In Wednesday’s report, she reaffirmed her position, saying UC should speed up construction of one campus, reassess the need for a second and abandon plans for a third altogether. As with her review of the CSU proposal, Hill questioned UC’s enrollment assumptions.

Hill also recommended that the Legislature take a look at the purchase of six new cars for CSU vice chancellors and review the hefty salary increases awarded CSU Chancellor W. Ann Reynolds and 26 vice chancellors and campus presidents.

The analysis noted that the CSU Board of Trustees found the money for the salary increases by dipping into the salary pool for other executive employees. While Reynold’s salary was being boosted 43%--from $136,244 to $195,000--and presidents’ salaries were going up an average of 17%, scheduled pay raises for other management employees were being lowered, from 4% to 3.7%.

CSU spokesman Stephen MacCarthy, responding to questions raised by Hill about the campus construction program, said, “We believe our growth plans are appropriate. We are projecting an increase of 180,000 students over the next 15 years, and the only way to sustain that growth is to build new campuses.” (Hill believes that the state Department of Finance’s enrollment projections of 105,000 new students are closer to the mark.)

MacCarthy said cars are being provided for vice chancellors because they are considered to be “on duty 24 hours a day and there are only a limited amount of pool cars available.” As for the questions raised about the salary hikes for Reynolds and the others, MacCarthy said top CSU administrators were being paid 19% less than officials in comparable positions in other parts of the country.

Hill’s report also focused on the high cost of financing anti-drug programs. While drug and alcohol use is on the decline in the general population, heavy use by hard-core abusers is on the rise, the budget analysis said.

Citing a study by the national Drug Abuse Warning Network, the report said that between 1983 and 1988 there was a 451% increase in emergency room treatments of cocaine users in California and a 457% increase in cocaine-related deaths. The budget review said California will spend more than $1 billion in state and federal funds for anti-drug programs during the current budget year and local governments will spend another $2 billion. On the state level, the largest share of the money, $501 million, will be spent incarcerating drug offenders in state prisons.