The opening bell

The time: August 2009.

The place: San Jose, CA, 10th largest city in the US according to the radio.

The topic: San Jose State University in an age of what used to be called "austerity", but this year and next will be beyond austere.

The broad situation: plunging (financial) support for higher education in California, and rising needs and costs. Inevitable outcome = kaboom. This blog will follow the kaboom as it slowly unfolds. Unless a knight in shining armor comes to the rescue with buckets of money and/or new ideas.

Oddly enough, something like 10-15 years ago we were treated to discussions about how state support for the California State University (CSU) system was slowly but surely slipping. Measured in terms of percentage of the state's general fund, either all of it ofr just the discretionary part (from which we are funded), there was a clear downward trend. What was also clear was that given enough time, our percentage would inevitably become ZERO. In which case, what? Nobody was sure. Also, nobody seemed to be doing much warning!

So fast-forward to August 2009, and SJSU President Whitmore's address. Here are the two attention-grabbing slides:



OK, so the first slide shows that our share of the general fund dropped from 3.34% in 2008/09 to 1.8% in 2009/10. Perhaps it's better to note that we dropped from 2.89% in 2006/08 to 1.8% in 2009/10. How is this not on the public radar?



And then the second slide! OMG, well, to deal with the "shortfall" of $44m on this campus, 43% of the "cuts" have been absorbed by faculty and staff furloughs. This is fancy-speak for a temporary 10% pay cut, supposedly for a year. And then 41% of the "cuts" have been ameliorated by the 20% fee hike imposed about two weeks before classes started (and AFTER many students had paid fees!) Resulting in? The second figure shows that this year (for the first time ever???), the majority of the operating funds at SJSU are from fees! Remember that fees used to be zero? Not no more.

Can it get more amazing? Oh yes. Wait 'till next year, when we are expecting: (a) an additional 10% cut in our operating budget; and (b) the presumed expiration of furlough savings. Resulting in an overall cut of an additional 20% next year.

Since the vast majority of dollars that come in to run the place go for salaries (faculty, staff, administration - ALL of whom are needed to keep the show running), can we perhaps say that employee parking will be less competitive next year???