UC, Cal State request more from Sacramento

With optimism brimming from the passage of Proposition 30, the University of California and California State University governing boards Wednesday approved budgets seeking increases in state funding to boost enrollment and maintain other programs -- even as both institutions were warned by Gov. Jerry Brown that costs must be controlled to avoid tuition hikes.

Brown’s message received a timely echo when incoming Cal State Chancellor Timothy P. White requested a 10% cut in his proposed salary, saying that he wished “to contribute to the rebuilding of this great university.”

The request was announced by board Chairman A. Robert Linscheid as trustees were set to consider a compensation package that would have included an annual salary of $421,500, plus a $30,000 monthly salary supplement from the university’s nonprofit foundation. White’s new salary will be $380,000, plus the foundation supplement.

White is now chancellor of UC Riverside and was attending, along with Brown, a meeting of the UC regents in San Francisco.

“It’s one way for me to deliver a clear, values-based message that I’m on your side and willing to take a hit,” White said. He takes over from Chancellor Charles B. Reed on Dec. 31.

Brown said in a statement that White “has demonstrated the kind of leadership that our system of higher education so desperately needs.”

Brown urged UC leaders to develop more online classes and other possible ways to keep fees from increasing over the next few years. His comments came as UC raised the possibility of a 6% tuition hike next year if the state does not boost funding enough.

“In order to meet the needs going forward without constant large tuition increases, there will have to be different ways in which people learn and people teach,” Brown said.

He told the regents -- and they quickly agreed -- to invite industry leaders in free online education, such as the Udacity website, to the January meeting to discuss how UC can more aggressively get into the digital classroom.

Brown said he wanted those talks to be “not in the gilded tones of academia but in the harsh reality of the marketplace and technologies.”

The regents approved an initial 2013-14 budget that asked the state for $2.79 billion in general revenues, $417 million more than it received this year.

That includes $126.5 million that officials said might eliminate a possible fee increase.

The governor said he would try to keep tuition low but noted that UC’s repeated requests for more money is “unsustainable” amid many other demands for state funds. A decision about any undergraduate tuition hike may not occur until May, officials said.

At Brown’s urging, the regents postponed consideration of increases next year in the supplemental tuition charges for students in more than 50 graduate and professional degree programs, such as law, dentistry and architecture. Some of those ranged from 1.5% to 35% and may be reconsidered later this year while some may be dropped, UC President Mark G. Yudof said.

Yudof thanked Brown for his leadership in getting Proposition 30 passed and said it gave UC a chance to avoid tuition increases or to keep them “very, very moderate.”

The measure, which raises the sales tax for four years and the income tax on high-earners for seven, enabled regents to abandon plans for a 20%, or $2,400, tuition hike starting next month.

Meeting in Long Beach, Cal State trustees approved a 2013-14 support budget that includes a request of $372 million in additional state funds.

The budget includes $156 million to increase enrollment about 5%, or about 20,000 more students next fall; $86 million for compensation for faculty and staff who haven’t had a pay increase for years; $50 million for urgent maintenance needs and $58 million for a new initiative to help students graduate.

The plan would bring annual spending to about $4.5 billion, including $70 million from student fee revenues.

larry.gordon@latimes.com

carla.rivera@latimes.com