CSUN’s army of administrators and insufficient funding for instructors are to blame for cuts in class sections, student admission and faculty instructors, said Dr. Howard Bunsis during his Thursday lecture in Sierra Hall.
Bunsis, an accounting professor at Eastern Michigan University, examined CSUN’s financial records, as well as the CSU system, and determined that both institutions are in “strong financial condition.”
He was invited as an independent financial analyst by the California Faculty Association (CFA) to properly inform the students about the financial health of the university in order for them to participate in discussions, said Amy Denissen, associate professor and chair of the membership committee for the CFA’s Northridge chapter.
CSUN Financial Analysis
According to Bunsis, the only problem is the excessive amount of administrators who have nothing to do with the teaching profession. Instruction funding accounts for a third of the CSUN budget and was the only department to receive significant cuts, while institutional support and other administrative categories remained the same.
“I’m speechless,” said Grace Castillo, 20, a sophomore majoring in psychology, when she saw administrators’ salaries displayed on powerpoint.
Decreasing the number of administrators, their salaries and using CSUN’s $171 million in unrestricted net assets (CSUN’s emergency fund) would be effective strategies to revive investing in instruction, Castillo said.
Bunsis predicted a difficult 2012-2013 year for CSUN if change is not implemented
The surplus of administrators is not the only problem, Bunsis said. Misplaced priorities on the CSU level are also the cause of increase in tuition and class size.
Bunsis said the state legislature has not supported public higher education in California and is no longer considered a public good.
The CSU has undergone a shift in where it gets it money from. In 2006, 55 percent of the total money came from the state and 22 percent from students. In 2011, the CSU received less than half its money from the state and instead shifted onto the students. Last year, student tuition accounted for 29 percent of the total money, according to Bunsis.
“It didn’t surprise me that (CSU) would be telling something completely different from the reality,” said Jorge Moraga, 24, a senior majoring in history and Central American studies, about the system’s claim to have no money.
Moraga was shocked at the system’s surplus of administrators and its $2 billion cushion in reserves.
“It’s really about individual priorities. You tell this new president or Chancellor Reed ‘can you not get paid this much?’ but it’s in their interest to maintain that salary,” he said.
Solution
In order to stop to the divesting of instruction “every campus must undertake what we call a zero-based budget analysis, justify the existence, budget and salary of every upper level administrator,” Bunsis said.
Cutting classes is not the right approach, cutting administrators is — cutting those who do not enhance student learning don’t deserve to be paid nearly as much, he said.
“It makes you feel numb, overall, about how the whole budget system works. I’m fortunate enough to have escaped here with about $10,000 in debt, but it’s still very gruesome for those who still believe the CSU is affordable and accessible for all students,” Moraga said.
