CSU San Marcos Just Grazed by Governor’s Budget Ax

Cal State San Marcos has survived the recent state budget cuts nearly unscathed, the president of the fledgling university said Thursday after a meeting of Cal State presidents and the chancellor.

The school will only have to absorb $200,000 at most in cuts, about 2% of its $9.7-million operating budget, said Bill Stacy, the school’s president.

In earlier budget cutting, the university had suffered cuts of $396,000 in computer equipment from its requested budget, but none of the university’s $7.3 million for construction in 1990-91 was diminished.

“As a new campus, I have to admit that (the presidents) treated San Marcos extremely well,” Stacy said. “The governor has kept his promise of full funding of CSU San Marcos. Given the magnitude of cuts that hit some of my other sister campuses, I can’t complain.”

The new campus, which is already operating on a bare-bones staff, will also have to function with one less administrator because of the cuts.

“It doesn’t mean that anybody loses a job, it means that a person won’t be hired,” Stacy said.

He said management personnel raises will be deferred six months until January, 1991.

Sen. Bill Craven (R-Carlsbad), the campus’ strongest legislative supporter, said he is “delighted” with Cal State San Marcos’ fortune in having been minimally damaged by the budget ax.

The Cal State system was faced with a shortfall of $71 million from the outset. In anticipation of this, trustees increased student fees 5% to raise $10.5 million. But the state took this new-found money into account, and now, Stacy said, those fees are now likely to be increased by 10%, to $390 per semester for a full-time student.

“That’s still the greatest bargain in higher education today,” he added.

Thursday’s meeting of the presidents in Long Beach was a prelude to today’s meeting of the system’s trustees and finance committee, who will decide how to spread out the budget cuts.