Chancellor Warns of Cal State Closings : Education: At least one of the system’s 20 colleges will be shut if the budget is cut to the degree being discussed, he says. San Marcos campus is said to be ‘in jeopardy.’

California State University Chancellor Barry Munitz warned Tuesday that “if we get the kinds of budgets now being discussed” by the Legislature and the Wilson Administration, one or more of the system’s 20 campuses “will be closed.”

In a speech to the Comstock Club here, and in later comments to reporters, Munitz said there is no way that all CSU campuses can operate next year if the system’s budget is cut 10% or more, as current discussions in the state Assembly and Senate and within the Wilson Administration, indicate may happen.

Munitz, who took over the 361,000-student system last summer, would not name the campuses that might be closed but noted that the small San Marcos campus in northern San Diego County is “in jeopardy” due to budget cuts and heavy dependence on the $900-million higher education bond issue that will be on the June ballot.

The chancellor said he will meet with campus presidents early next month to discuss the cuts that must be made to match whatever the final budget appropriation turns out to be.

If CSU receives the $1.66 billion recommended for 1992-93 in Gov. Pete Wilson’s proposed budget, “we can get by and we can begin to restore some of the cuts” that have been made in recent years, Munitz said.

But, he also said, “there’s almost no chance we’ll get that.”

With revenues continuing to fall behind projections, an across-the board cut of at least 10% in all state services that are not protected by constitutional guarantees seems likely, Administration sources have said.

Munitz said a 5% budget cut would force the Cal State system to limit enrollment, even if student fees are increased 40%, as the system’s Board of Trustees has requested.

“I would interpret a 5% revenue reduction to mean that the state wants us to cut people, no matter what level of student fees is approved,” the chancellor said.

The sharper the budget cut, the more access would have to be limited, he said. If the reduction is around 10%, Munitz said, he would recommend that the trustees close one or two campuses. If the cut is as high as 18%, which is possible under the version of the budget approved by the Assembly, more campuses would have to be shuttered.

Assemblyman Tom Hayden (D- Santa Monica), chairman of the Assembly Higher Education Committee, on Tuesday said Munitz’s assessment “would be right if no administrative fat was cut out of the budget and if the governor and the Legislature don’t cut tax loopholes.”

“I’d rather cut tax loopholes than cut classrooms,” said Hayden, who claimed that $250 million in additional revenue could be realized by eliminating state tax deductions for business meals, country club dues and tickets to sports events.

In his speech, Munitz declared the state’s 32-year-old Master Plan for Higher Education to be “dead . . . or at least dying,” because state financial support for CSU and the University of California no longer is enough to support swelling enrollments.

He called for a one-year moratorium on spending cuts and other actions while the assumptions of the Master Plan, which guarantees a place in a public higher education institution for all qualified Californians, are restudied.

Munitz said that by not providing adequate financial support for higher education, “The state is in the process of putting at risk . . . the traditional ticket to the American dream and is also jeopardizing California’s ability to remain competitive.”

Warren Fox, director of the Postsecondary Education Commission, which advises the governor and the Legislature on higher education policy, agreed that Cal State “finds itself in a very difficult position” because it receives no constitutionally guaranteed Proposition 98 money, as the community colleges do, nor does it have the financial independence that the state Constitution grants to UC.