Numbers Bring Relief to Campus Chief

Curtis L. McCray, the president of Cal State Long Beach, is feeling relieved these days.

A looming budget deficit that looked formidable three months ago has turned out to be less than predicted. Fall enrollment did not exceed the budgeted limits. And last week at a combined inauguration and 40th birthday celebration kicking off the new academic year, McCray’s year-old presidency got a lift from actor/comedian Steve Martin, a former CSULB student, who was back on campus to receive an honorary degree.

But the president’s mood was more sober during a recent interview assessing the university’s present and its future.

$3-Million Cut Feared

Three months ago, McCray said, signals from Sacramento indicated that the governor’s budget for the new fiscal year would cut about $3 million from the Long Beach campus’ $136.4-million allotment.

McCray responded in two ways: he raised the specter of severe reductions in the operating expenses of several campus programs, and he asked the chancellor’s office to declare the campus “impacted”--a legal maneuver that would have allowed the university to turn away as many as 3,000 qualified students this fall.

By the time the governor’s budget was finally approved, however, the situation looked much less drastic. Instead of $3 million, McCray said, the new state budget cut the university’s allotment by about $1 million. And as students began showing up for classes earlier this week, he said, it was apparent that the university’s own enrollment-cutting measures had had an effect.

Among other things, McCray said, the university shortened the traditional pre-enrollment period by several days and encouraged incoming students to take some classes at nearby Cal State Dominguez Hills, which has a low enrollment. As a result, he said, the final fall enrollment is expected to be about 23,600, almost exactly the number for which the campus is budgeted.

“We’re in better shape than we expected,” McCray said. “We’re not fat, but it’s not a panic year. (The budget) is do-able.”

To help make it that way, McCray cut $125,000 from the university’s $1.5-million athletic program, $150,000 from its $500,000 art museum budget, and $50,000 from the $450,000 budget for KLON, a campus FM radio station that specializes in jazz. While the cuts will be felt, he said, they are much less than anticipated and are not likely to seriously hamper the effectiveness of those programs.

The rest of the deficit, McCray said, will be made up by reducing the university’s custodial staff through natural attrition, reducing the amount of reserve cash in the budget, waiting until later in the year to hire new staffers and maintaining a cautious attitude regarding new equipment purchases.

An Option for Next Year

“We will squeeze in different places,” McCray said.

Although he is no longer seeking a declaration of “impaction” for the fall semester, McCray said, he is pursuing it as an option for next year when the university may once again face over-enrollment. And he has already initiated a series of meetings with the chancellor’s office to stimulate a revision of longstanding state funding formulas that he considers unfavorable to CSULB.

But for now, the president said, last week’s inauguration and birthday bash provided a perfect moment for the university to “freeze time” and take stock. “I think it’s important to every once in awhile stop and engage in a recognition,” McCray said. “We’re now 40 years of age, and 40 is a kind of maturity. I wanted to signal that.”