Assembly Budget Subcommittee No. 3 on Education Finance

Good afternoon, everybody. Welcome to the Assembly Budget Subcommitee Number three on Education Finance. I am Chair David Alvarez and I want to thank you all for being here for this Committee hearing today. This hearing will focus on both the CSU and the library budget, the state library budgets.

We have five CSU issues on the agenda today and two library issues. We will not, we do not expect to vote on any issues today. This is a critical year for CSU.

We've had some discussions already and I hope that today's conversations continue to add to the discussions that we've had related to CSU budget and enrollment issues that we've seen at some campuses. Overall, we know that CSU is in financial difficulties with the system facing a deficit of more than $200 million this year.

Even in a year in which the state has provide increased General Fund support and tuition increases are bringing in more revenue to the system. We also know that some campuses are, like I said earlier, really struggling. We've had some brief discussions about the deep cuts being considered at Sonoma State and we've heard about others potentially as well.

I hope we can talk today about what CSU is thinking about the term in terms of helping these campuses stabilize their budgets over the next few years. I believe that the CSU needs to think big about how to handle these difficult budget issues which are large and not a one time issue.

We will talk about the proposed cut to CSU which in my opinion is also too large and will impact students in potentially several negative ways. Many of my colleagues are also concerned about these cuts and I want to acknowledge the work done by chair of the Higher Education Committee who has submitted the concerns of many.

In fact, most of our colleagues who have expressed opposition to the cuts to the CSU system. Access is our top priority in the Subcommitee. So I want to talk about CSU's enrollment trends and how the system can serve more students even amid a budget downturn.

We know that a few campuses like San Diego, San Luis Obispo and others are turning away thousands of students who are applying to those campuses. While many other campuses are struggling to attract enough students just to stay open. CSU is starting to address this imbalance.

I've heard of some steps being taken, but I think we need to talk more and want to see more on how the system can better support student demand at the campuses where there is such a demand. I'm also looking forward to a project that is both important to my district and to the state as a whole.

After years of discussions, we have real momentum around the multi segmental campus at Chula Vista. And I hope we can hear from both CSU and Southwestern Community College about the plans here today. We'll also hear issues regarding the state library. And I know we have some public comment around proposed reductions to the library.

So what we're going to do for today, as we've done before, is we're going to allow for some public comment at the beginning in a Shorter format. So only 30 second public comment on any of the items that are before us today.

This is your opportunity to provide some feedback, some comments and some thoughts and potentially some questions that we can ask through the panelists that we'll hear from today. So with that, we will begin the public comment. And again, we'll give you 30 seconds and I'll let you know when the time has extended. Inspired. Welcome.

Greetings. My name is Jim Dimitri Kales. I'm the CEO of Braille Institute of America. We're here to talk about the impact. Of the Braille Institute Library, which reaches 700,000 blind and visually impaired individuals across Southern California. Our funding has been completely cut from. The State of California budget.

I'm here with patrons and team members from across Southern California who'd like to. Share their story of the devastating impact. Of these cuts on our library.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Hello, everyone. I'm Lisa Lepore. I am the library Director of the Braille Institute Library. We serve thousands of patrons in 10 counties in Southern California. Unlike a public library where patrons will go in, our patrons, for the most part, we serve from home. Our reading material includes braille books for. Those who read by touch, audiobooks for.

Those who listen to their books, and large print. We in order to meet this need, we have specialized staff. It takes a lot of training and. A lot of effort to make sure that our staff know how to help. Our patrons by phone or over zoom. Thank you.

Thank you, Scott Blanks, on behalf of the Braille Institute Library. This cut that has been proposed will affect kids who are in their formative stages of literacy. I was one of those kids who. Benefited from the library. It opened up my world to curiosity, to explore, to become a better professional. We've been in the budget since 1978.

And even in the worst years in 2009, when we had significant budget shortfalls, we didn't lose a penny. Why are we losing 100% of the money that we were allotted since 1978? That's a question I want everyone to think about. Thank you.

Hi, my name is Savannah Gill. I'm here on behalf of the Braille Institute Library. I have been visually impaired for about eight years through the Braille Institute Library. I learned to read braille because as I get older, my eyesight is only going to get worse.

I also teach reading to students in my community and the Braille Institute Library. Helps me to get the same materials. That they are reading so that I can continue to do the work to help children learn to read in the ways that they need it.

Thank you. Thank you.

Good afternoon. My name is Sherry Owen. I'm here on behalf of the Braille Institute Library. I'm a veteran, a Gulf War veteran of the United States Air Force. And I'm also the incoming President for the Blinded Veterans Association of the Southern. Regional District starting in June.

And I wanted to be here today to let everyone know that veterans. We rely on the Braille Institute Library. For the services that we receive through, through our E readers, through veterans that are at home that need these services.

We do have veteran services, but without the library, we can't download the books that the veteran allows us to have. And I want to thank you very much for your time. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay, right there.

My name is Dennis Perrone. I'm a patron of the Blind Institute Library. My wife Teresa.

We are volunteers who co host. Who co host a monthly book club for those with Low vision and blindness. We find that when people start reading. Books, they are then able to discuss. Them, move on to other topics and. Get into things that affect their lives as blind people.

I believe our book club does not end at the water's edge. Our book club gives people the. I'm trying to think of the motivation to go out back into the world. And leave the safety and confine their safety of their home and get back. Into the world and live a full life. Please restore our funds. Thank you.

Thank you both.

Good afternoon. I am Rita Visor for the Braille Institute Library. And these cuts affect us all throughout Southern California and that includes the Spanish speaking community as well as blind children, the elderly in nursing homes, as well as veterans.

So we ask that you please consider us, but most importantly consider the quality our life quality and the impact this will have. Because to us, this is every day. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon. I'm Sandy Shin with Braille Institute. I'm the last speaker on behalf of Braille Institute. And what you've heard today is the Braille Institute Library provides a vital and essential service. It's a connection for individuals to the world. It's a lifeline. It's a way for them to be able to remain independent and continue to enjoy reading.

We are asking that you restore our funding, and we are asking for $800,000. To be put back into the upcoming budget. So regardless of how somebody reads, whether. They use touch to read braille books. Or they listen with audio books, or they look through Low vision at a large print book, we provide those essential services.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Hi, I'm. Hi. I'm Adam Swenson. I'm the Vice Chair of the Academic Senate of the. Gosh, I'm still nervous doing this. Sorry, Vice Chair of the Academic Senate of the CSU. But I'm here as just a Professor. From Cal State Northridge, which has relatively decent enrollment.

But I want you to know that the cuts that are being contemplated are already having effects. As we plan our fall schedule, we are reducing classes, we are raising class class sizes. And we're not in the situation of other campuses which are cutting programs in ways that are basically permanent or really deprived communities of graduates. But it's affecting our students. Thank you.

Good afternoon, chair and Members. My name is Catherine Hutchinson. I'm the President of California State University Employees union. We represent 35,000 non faculty and student assistance. As you review this budget, I urge you to reconsider the proposed cuts and analyze whether a deferral of the compact is appropriate.

I also respectfully request that the Legislature provide oversight and direction to the CSU leadership. Our students deserve all of us pushing to support them, regardless of what CSU campus they are enrolled in. We need a funded CSU that supports every corner of the state and its employees. And I look forward to working with you on these goals. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Chair Alvarez and Members. My name is Elizabeth Boyd, and I am the chair of the academic Senate of CSU, representing the 29,000 faculty voices in the shared governance component of the CSU.

I'm here to thank you for your questions and for your thoughtful discussion that you're about to have today on the CSU budget and to just say, you are correct. These cuts go very deep, and they are too. They are too large. Please stop these cuts to the CSU.

They will have a deep impact on the California economy and the social mobility of our. Of our state.

Thank you very much. Thank you all for providing your testimony. And if there are other public comments, those who have not spoken will have an opportunity at the end of the meeting. And with that, I would like to ask our first panel to please, please come forward.

This will be a discussion of the California State University Core operations review and funding proposals. We believe we have the Department of Finance, the Legislative Analyst Office and California State University Chancellor's Office. We'll go in that order, please.

So we'll start with the Department of Finance and specifically, just for the public, this is a discussion of the Governor's Budget proposal to reduce the on an ongoing General Fund support of $375 million and defer a 5% base increase in the budget. Again, welcome and Department of Finance, please kick us off.

Good. Good afternoon, Chair Alvarez and Assembly Members present. This is Devin Mitchell with the Department of Finance. I'm going to discuss the proposals in the 2025-26 Governor's Budget for the CSU.

The CSU will receive 252.3 million ongoing General Fund which represents the 5% base increase in the fourth year of the multi year compact between the Administration and the CSU. Payment of the 2025 26amount has been effectively deferred to 2027-28. This is in alignment with legislative intent language that was included in the 20 Budget Act.

The statewide reduction efforts adopted as part of the 2024 Budget act remain in effect authorizing statewide reductions intended to address ongoing statewide budget pressures. Therefore, the CSU should continue planning for a reduction of 7.95% in ongoing General Fund support totaling approximately 375.2 million beginning in the 202526 fiscal year.

Additionally, the budget also includes 345,000 ongoing General Fund to support the costs of recently chaptered legislation that requires the CSU to provide drug testing devices defined as test strips, stickers, straws and other devices designed to detect the presence of controlled substances in a drink at no cost to students at every on campus health center.

And I'll plan to discuss the augmentation for the CSU Center for California Studies and the subsequent panel about the Capital Fellows program that was outlined in the agenda. That concludes my remarks, but I look forward to answering any questions you might have after everyone else on the panel has spoken. Thank you.

Legislative Analyst Office, please.

Good afternoon, Chair Alvarez and Members of the Subcommitee. Natalie Gonzalez with the Legislative Analyst Office. To help balance the budget in 2425, many state agencies took small reductions to their state operations. By comparison, the state provided CSU with a roughly 3% increase in General Fund support in 2425.

CSU also saw a 6% increase in tuition revenue in 2425. Looking to 2526, the state indicated that it planned to reduce CSU's state support and the 2526 budget plan does reduce CSU state support by $300 million. Some of that planned reduction is offset by certain General Fund augmentations for CSU.

Under the Governor's Budget, CSU receives $178 million in augmentations in 25, which are mostly going to pensions and retiree health care, which the state pays for that in a targeted way. In addition, CSU estimates its tuition and fee revenue will increase by about $188 million in 2526. Altogether.

With this state and tuition revenue combined, CSU's core funding is projected to be about flat for 25, 26. Though core funding is about flat, CSU is facing rising cost increases that it must cover in areas such as health care, utilities and insurance premiums.

These rising costs are compounded by budget shortfalls that CSU experienced in 23, 24 and 24, 25, which are described in greater detail on page six of your agenda. Given these past budget shortfalls, campuses have already been working to reduce spending through implementing personnel reductions, administrative consolidations, deferring capital renewal projects and reducing non essential expenses.

CSU shared that campuses plan to continue implementing these types of reductions in 25, 26. Some of these actions, such as hiring freezes, could result in fewer course offerings, larger class sizes and potentially reduced student services. Additionally, I wanted to touch on the deferral. Regarding the deferral, we recommend the Legislature reject the deferral.

The state has not identified how it would pay for this deferral and the state is facing projected budget deficits in the next few years. Therefore, the state would either likely not provide the deferred payments to CSU or these payments would come at the expense of other programs.

Rather than instituting the deferral, we recommend the Legislature wait until the given budget year to make changes to CSU's base funding. This would provide a more accurate funding expectation for CSU. Thank you and happy to take any questions.

Thank you. Chancellor's Office, please.

Well, good afternoon. Good afternoon, Chair Alvarez and Members. My name is Ryan Storm. I'm the Assistant Vice Chancellor for Budget for the CSU Chancellor's Office. I wanted to start off real quick by giving you some overall takeaways. I really appreciate the agenda, my colleagues here and the chair summarizing what has occurred already with the CSU's budget.

But essentially what we're left with at the CSU is that our primary budget goal this year, of course, as you have heard already multiple times, is to avoid those budget cuts that are proposed by the Governor. We have some very significant concerns with those proposals.

There's this dual expectation that we cut costs but then also increase our spending related to the deferral for the out years. And that invites some pretty significant risk to the University. The first is of course that the state, both the LAO and finance are forecasting out year budget deficits.

It makes it difficult for us to plan for the receipt of such deferrals in the future. I think the other thing too that is of risk to us is obviously, and all of you are aware of, is the cuts that are contemplated in Washington D.C.

so those are two significant risks to the University in terms of long term planning for us. Want to also note that we remain committed to the tenants of the compact, but it will be very difficult, perhaps even impossible to make progress in many of the areas without restoration of funding or a removal of those cuts.

So like my colleague in the LAO has just walked through, I wanted to share with you again that the CSU has some recent history of some fiscal challenges. Here at the CSU we're already under some pretty significant financial pressure due to rising as well as some significant unavoidable operating cost increases.

Just to reiterate what my colleague said, we have $138 million budget gap in 23, 24 as well as $218 million gap in the current year in 24, 25. And we understand that the state has significant budget challenges and the CSU is doing its part though to address those the system structural budget issues.

So let me give you a couple examples. The first is that we adopted as CSU a multi year tuition increase in fall of 23.

It's the first time we've done that in about 13 years or we've done it once in the past 13 years and that amounts to about a 5%, a 5 year tuition increase, raising tuition about 6% per year.

Want to note though however that that tuition increase comes with one third of that revenue being set aside for financial aid. So we're committed in the long term to supporting our students and their financial their financial needs.

Also, another thing that we're up to in terms of trying to address this budget, our budget challenges is we've implemented an enrollment target and budget reallocation plan. And what this does is it shifts funding from our under enrolled campuses and shifts that funding to those campuses that have strong demand.

Another thing that we've been up to is that we have integrated both the Maritime Academy and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. The Maritime Academy is struggling very significantly financially and that's one of the significant efforts and changes that we have made recently.

And then the other thing that I wanted to point out is that we have implemented a multi University collaboration initiative to reduce costs and better serve students. That is in the areas of it security, where all of us are vulnerable these days to security breaches. To also help with Administration of employee benefits as well as procurement.

So all that said, we still have challenges that require reductions and especially since the number of our campuses have seen some declining enrollment, that also hurts on the revenue side of the equation.

So to date, and to date so far, so just with the two years that we've had some significant budget challenges, we have these sorts of factoids that should get your attention. We have already had 1,208 jobs that have been reduced on 17 of our campuses.

It's a combination of vacant positions as well as employees who have been let go. We also have 1,430 course sections that have been reduced at seven of our universities. We have 13 universities that have decreased their student service employees by an average of 7% of that workload.

These are the folks that are academically supporting students and advising as well as other types of services to them. And then also from a management, we call them management personnel plan employees. Across the system, 98 folks have been non retained.

So we are definitely already doing our part in terms of a number of initiatives, but then unfortunately having to reduce some of the very much important areas that I just described. So looking ahead, we have the administration's 25, 26 proposal to reduce our budget by $375 million.

That's going to be about an 8% budget cut for not only the Chancellor's office but all of our universities. That's the proposal. It's unlike the reductions that have occurred in other areas of the state budget. Again, for 252526 we already forecast that our costs are going to outstrip the funds that we have available to us.

And if you couple that with the deferred investments and changing demographics that we see, student demographics, the current budget proposal threatens to harm the critical progress that we have made so far in improving student success through our graduation initiative and other measures.

So in terms of those consequences going forward, what we anticipate, we think that a budget cut of this size will negatively impact students and their services that they will rely on. I just showed or described to you some of those people that are no longer with us in order to support those students.

We anticipate more of that will be coming because of this cut, if it's adopted. We also believe that if the funding is reduced, we'll see instruction, academic support, student services and their ability, and that will be negatively impacted. We also anticipate, like my colleague from the Academic Senate reported in public testimony, anticipated larger class sizes for students.

We will likely see course reductions as well, and we think that will hamper their ability to graduate in time. And we also think that the proposed reduction and without the compact funding, the CSU finds itself in what we think is a pretty precarious crossroad, so to speak, and that we face some pretty hard decisions going forward.

And with that very upbeat and exciting report from the CSU, I'd like to end my comments and thank you, Chair, for giving me the opportunity to do so.

Thank you. Appreciate it. I should note for both for the public and for the Members of this Subcommitee staff, myself and certainly those who are before us today, specifically our staff, our consultant has spent a lot of time on these items today.

We are not taking lightly the fact that these are the largest cuts disproportionately compared to other cuts in the General Fund programs that are being proposed by the Administration. And that is why we took the time and we're taking the time that we think is necessary to discuss these.

So I just wanted to acknowledge that this is a. It's very serious. It's as precarious as was just mentioned by the chancellor's office. And it's for that reason that we attempted in preparing today's agenda to offer to all of you different ideas of how to think about this and how we could potentially approach resolving this problem.

It is my hope and goal that the Assembly moves forward the budget proposal that does not create the types of cuts that are in the governor's proposal. But in order to do that, we need to identify how we're going to accomplish that. That is the job of this Subcommitee. And so that's what you have before us today.

So I hope you have a chance to, if you haven't had a chance to really thoroughly read today's report that you do so. And so a lot of my questions are based on what is presented in today's report.

The first and most obvious question would be to the Department of Finance as to why the operational cuts to CSU is so much larger than it is for other state agencies as a percentage.

Well, I think Devin Mitchell with the Department of Finance, again, I think part of that has to do with what was in the agenda in terms of how all of CSU's General Fund appropriation is essentially through state operations. The state operated this process and so it's just a percentage of a larger number.

But if we compared the operations of these two, let's call them agencies because these are to or departments, if you will. The CSU and the UC are essentially comparable to an agency. Other agencies are not facing the same type of cuts. There are cuts that are being implemented more at the central operations management level.

That is Sacramento versus what is the impact to the individuals who receive those services, in this case students? We did not. The proposed budget does not differentiate that. And so is this just because it's common practice or why. Why was the decision made to approach it this way?

Well, I think part of it the budget and I saw there was a comparison to the Student Aid Commission, for example, made and there just isn't the distinction in the budget of funding for like the the CSU Chancellor's office versus the campuses.

It doesn't break down quite as neatly as that in how the state budgets for the CSU.

Would it be your opinion though, that we could be more surgical about how we budget for CSU and approach it in that way as opposed to the way that's being presented?

Be hard to say.

I mean I wouldn't want to speculate. About that to the lao.

Do you think the Legislature could be more intentional about how it distributes some of these cuts that are being proposed in this budget in a way that we focus in on cuts at an agency head level, if you will, equivalent to what happens with other agencies in the state.

So the LAO did look at other options that we could do for potentially cutting the CSU. I believe that's in your agenda. Sorry, I don't know the exact page number. But we looked at, for example, reducing funding for CSU's Chancellor's office specifically by 7.95%.

We also looked at reducing funding for the chancellor's office by 10%, which would include both control section 405 and control Section 54.12, which includes the vacant position reduction.

Since the we're not able to reduce the number of positions at CSU, this would be a way cutting by 10% would kind of incorporate that additional reduction that other departments saw. We also looked at some other options that are listed in the agenda. But that is something that we did calculate that could be a possibility to consider.

So you did the calculations and that was on page 11.

Just for everybody's sake what was referenced right now and appreciate that doing that some of that work as far as what the budget approval and what gets budgeted and what the final language in the budget is, could it be more directed in a different way to how these cuts could take place?

So, Jennifer Pacella, Legislative Analyst Office yes, you as a Legislature have prerogative as to how you take these cuts. We did look into the chair's question from an earlier hearing. The chair had asked about whether there's something special as to why CSU and UC are budgeted just to state operations and the state.

What we learned is that the state has budgeted this way for a long time, that we've lost the paper trail somewhere in the early 1970s. But since the 1970s till today, it has been funded as state operations. We also learned that there is no statute or regulations that require you to do it that way.

So you could be as surgical as you would want to be. You could take the cut from the chancellor's office. You could take it from institutional support throughout the system, which would be broader, achieve more solution.

You could look through UCN, CSU's entire budgets and just try to get those areas of their budget that are less like not faculty. So you could preserve instruction or academic support or student services. So you do have a lot of options at your disposal.

We're happy to work with you as you make those decisions to give you other information if you're interested.

I certainly would be interested myself interested in also hearing if there's interest from the colleagues on that.

We don't want to send you down a rabbit hole, but so and you have, like you said, you've identified some and one that I just want to get you to provide more information about because you just mentioned that actually which is this institutional support. Can you tell me exactly what that is?

And we do have a table on our agenda. I recall seeing the table on page number six on the different types of expenditures from the CSU. And I do note that institutional support is listed there, roughly 10% of CSU's budget. Can you walk me through what that would be to the LAO's office, please?

Ryan Storm might be able to correct me if I don't get it correct. The Chancellor's office. The Chancellor's office. I'm sorry, but institutional support, as I understand it, it will include your campus President, typically your deans, your senior level management, your law legal staff, all of those, sometimes an HR manager or an IT manager.

Those will all be the things that keep the institution going and fall under institutions. So it's a lot of specific administrative positions. They are important to keeping the unit, but they are less connected to a classroom.

But if I may interrupt, sir, Ryan Storm for the chancellor's office again, it's not just the leadership of those particular instructional support elements. It is going to be the accountants, it's going to be the budget employees, it's going to be the IT support desk people. So institutional support is a very broad category. It's not just management types.

If I could continue a little bit on some of these options here, Mr. Chair, you mentioned about surgical versus, and I'll introduce this concept, the sledgehammer or the blunt force instrument. We hear about this on a national scale too, right now. What could come across to this body as a surgical intervention here?

Picking instructional support or central plant as, zero, this is a good surgical cut to make at the University will be seen at the CSU as more of a blunt force instrument or a hammer. And I'll tell you why. What we have is we have institutions in a variety of conditions right now.

You know, some of the most poignant ones, Maritime Academy, Sonoma, are some of those. Those institutions are now to the point where they are starting to remove teaching faculty and direct student supports. So if you were to go in as a body and say, the University shall take this cut, it shall be in the instructional area.

We have institutions that will say, how is that possible for us to do? We've already been there 34 years ago doing that, so be mindful of that. Okay?

So when it comes to potentially laying out what could be a cut, and we're going to advocate obviously there not to be a cut, but if you end up cutting us, we would contend that the best approach would be provide the University as much flexibility as possible.

The folks on the ground, those folks who run the institutions are the ones who know the most effective and most important aspects to keep alive and around. And they are the boots on the ground and can make those decisions between what is the highest priority to keep on campus versus something that is of lesser priority.

So I would just caution the body here that if there is a desire to be more specific, I would strongly please recommend that if you were to do that, that it'd be more of a flexibility perspective, like the increases that have occurred in the last many years. Flexibility on the way down as well.

I appreciate that feedback. There are some serious issues at the CSU related and we'll get to the issue of enrollment, but that go beyond ongoing that I think require and necessitate that the CSU look at what it's, what it's doing with all its operations and how it's maintaining its cuts away from impacting students.

And so we can, we can definitely get into that and I think it's a worthwhile conversation. But as far as identifying from a Legislature's perspective and our priorities, I think is around access and student services, that has to be the absolute last place where this, this goes.

And at the bare minimum now getting a little bit ahead of myself, but at the bare minimum we should be analyzing and knowing where decisions were made to cut just like we probably should have when there was augmentations. Should have been asking, where are you augmenting?

Are you augmenting student options for coursework or are you augmenting in management in some way? I don't know what happened with that. And so because we don't know that now, we can't have a conversation about those augmentations maybe weren't necessary and therefore we should be cutting there first.

So I think going forward, whether we augment or we make cuts, we need to, if we are going to provide some flexibility, I understand why we may need to do that.

At the minimum, we should have reporting and I'd ask staff in the LA to help us understand how we can best get reporting on how those decisions were made so that when new decisions have to be made, people have more information to make better decisions for on a campus, by campus basis.

So I'm still definitely interested in being more surgical and identifying how we can keep cuts away from the classroom.

And I do want to hear specifics as to why these options here today and some of the other options that the Department of Finance and that the CSU is hearing from our report today, why those are not viable options.

I think it's now incumbent upon both of you to help us understand why those are not better options than just an across the board cut to the extent that's being proposed in this budget. So I do think we need to identify where we can achieve savings.

So one of the questions that we prepared, and I'm sure you're prepared to answer, is what is the expectation of the merger with Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and Cal Maritime and where are we going to be achieving savings in that regard?

Yeah, Ryan Storm with CSU again, it's a little too early to tell where those savings will occur.

Right now what we do is we have the Maritime Academy and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo merging and we have multi year plan to invest one time money to help that transition because there will be some overlap there as we get further through and into the merger, which is still as far away as 2026.

Some of the last elements of that, we will have a better understanding at that point about where some of those savings could be. Obviously off the top of your head, of course, is some of the administrative overhead will be reduced because obviously you'll have fewer accountants necessary.

If you're under one body, you will not have two presidents anymore. Right. So there will be some obvious things at the beginning, but later on, I think it's probably better to wait to understand what those exact savings are when we actually realize them. So it's a little too early for us to prognosticate about when that will occur.

Well, you have the same number of vice presidents.

Hard to say at this point. I mean, they are very unique. There are very unique program deliveries at the Maritime Academy that are not currently underway at San Luis Obispo. The maritime aspect of it, obviously, but there may be some. But right now it's a little too early to tell.

Is there a standard that CSU utilizes on how many students at a campus require X number of administrators, vice presidents? Not that I'm aware of.

Not that I'm aware of.

Can we ask maybe the LAO and staff to look at maybe some industry standards on that? I'll turn it over to my colleagues if you have any questions. Mr. Fong.

Thank you so much, Mr. Chair, and appreciate the comments here. And thank you, Mr. Chair, for uplifting the CSU system these very challenging times. A similar question. This one's for Department of Finance.

As mentioned, the CSU and UC are being asked unfairly to shoulder the cost savings of the entire state by applying a reduction to the entire system instead of only the administrative army. And we know that more than half of the proposed total cost saves is on the backs of our universities, its faculty and our students.

And more than half of the Members of the Legislature, 61 Members, to be exact, signed onto our letter, my letter, to protect our universities, our CSU and UC systems from these cuts. Grateful to my colleagues who uplifted that as well.

And so when we look at the surgical approach, when we look at the numbers here, can you provide an update as to whether or not the Administration is looking to distribute these cuts more fairly?

Hi, Devin Mitchell, with the Department of Finance. We don't have any update to the Governor's Budget at this time. There will be a new, you know, updated May revision, but nothing to announce at this time.

Okay, thank you. Please, if there's any updates or any additional information you need. But as you heard from my colleagues, the chair, a number of my colleagues. This is something that's very critical going forward and so definitely want to be apprised of that.

Secondly, just for the chancellor's office, similar to the chair's question on the proposed merger of the administrative functions, on top of that, are there any other campuses making similar consolidations on the administrative side?

Yeah. Ryan Storm, again with the CSU on the administrative side. There was just announced last week at the board of trustees meeting that the East Bay campus, San Francisco campus and Sonoma campus will work to share administrative functions.

That's a recently announced proposal, but the idea here is, is that you would have some of those functions that would be shared by all three campuses.

But all three of those campuses are challenged, enrollment wise, and therefore are challenged revenue wise, as well as all the cuts that are being proposed and cost increases that they've already experienced, like all other campuses.

So that's one area in which has been announced that we will be working for three campuses to work together on those sorts of things. But in terms of, you know, merging a complete campus with another one or eliminating one, no, it's not to that scale. It's more of shared services and University, you know, collaborative initiatives like that.

Absolutely. And to follow up on the chair's comments, also on the expected savings, I know it's pretty early predictor, but do you have any projected cost savings for the just for the three campuses you just mentioned?

No, not at this time. It was just announced last week.

All right, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Fong. Ms. Patel.

Thank you for the presentation and sorry for walking in late. I was presenting a bill, but from reading the agenda document and hearing the conversations, and for the past several weeks we've been hearing these conversations as we talk about, for example, consolidating campuses.

If I draw a parallel between similar conversations in our local school districts, what we realize is the actual bulk of the cost isn't really saved because that is for the instruction and the student supports. It's a small fraction that we save with administrative over cost, maybe a little bit with facilities.

But can you give us a rough number of what that would be? What percentage? Let's see if I could phrase my question correctly. How much of a dent that would make in realizing savings towards, towards offsetting the overall 8% cut? I'm sorry, it's kind of a complex topic.

Well, let me try to ground you all in where we are and maybe give you the scale of what we're dealing with here. So 85% of the CSU's operating budget or operating fund, it's a combination of state General Fund and tuition, right? Those are our two major revenue sources.

85% of those revenue sources support people, their salaries and benefits, and financial aid, leaving 15% to do everything else. All of those instructional supports and things like that. Generally, the pecking order when you're trying to reduce budgets is this, first go to the admin side of the house.

Can we be more efficient with, you know, a benefit or can we be more efficient with the people that are on that side of the non-represented employees? That's your first line of defense.

But as I described earlier, we have several of our campuses that have already gone through that pecking order, from hiring freezes and administrative folks all the way down to we're having to issue layoff notices and things like that.

So it's really challenging now having been two years running in terms of finances down to now having a proposal where we would have to have a third year of potential reductions. So that's going to, that's going to then require us to go deeper in.

And we do not, I'll be very clear, we do not want to impact student courses or their services. But when you're at a point where your finances don't align well there, then you do have to tap that sometimes. So unfortunately we are in that place with many of our campuses.

And just to be clear too, all 23 campuses would be impacted by this $375 million cut. It's akin to the entire Fresno State University being blown away by a budget cut of that magnitude. So it's a very significant cut.

And that's why you hear, I think during the discussion here, this discussion of, well, if some offices at a statewide level are receiving 2, 3, 5% cuts, and then you see on the flip side here with the CSU where the entire entity is being proposed to be cut at 8%, there's a significant magnitude difference there.

Thank you for that.

Again, when we talk, I draw from my experience as a school board trustee, when we had to do reductions in our fiscal side of our house, in our accounting, in our financial aid types of supports, which would be in school board land, that would be our social supports, helping people get their nutrition assistance, et cetera, we found that would reduce the quality of service we were able to provide and would hit us on the backside in possible litigation or disruptions in services or not realizing all of the grants and funding we could get on the backside.

So we found that that's also a tough decision because while indirect to students, it definitely impacts students and the CSUs are running lean anyway.

So my question to the Department of Finance is, if we know that we rely on the CSU system to build our next generation of workers and our California economy depends on this workforce to then fill our coffers up and generate more revenue, why are the CSUs taking such a disproportionate hit with the budget cuts?

It's self-defeating almost.

Devin Mitchell with the Department of Finance. So, goes back a little bit to what I was mentioning to the Chair earlier about the mechanics of this reduction is 7.95% of General Fund state operations and how the CSU is funded. And so it's essentially all state operations as opposed to having a split between state operations and local assistance.

I think the other point I would just say is that there is a goal here in terms of addressing the budget shortfall. And so there's just a math problem. And this is just, this is what's in the budget.

Certainly just listening to the conversation here, we're aware that the Legislature may have a different perspective, but that's kind of the long and the short of it., yeah.

Yeah, certainly I understand that that's how things were done, but apparently that's not how things have to be done. And I would love to be able to continue this conversation in finding other solutions. As you said, it's not too late.

The budget was a first salvo and we have opportunities to provide our feedback, which we're doing here and over the past several weeks that there's general concern all around about this pretty significant cut to our CSU system. And we're relying on the CSUs to create that next generation of workforce.

So we definitely need to make sure that we're safe in doing that.

As I hear from the community members where, in the community that I represent, there are concerns around courses having to be closed and that extends their time that they have to be in the CSU system, which ultimately will extend cost and it won't be cost wise or budget wise to extend out the stay of our students in those programs.

So we have to. I would love to look at other places where we could shift costs, maybe other programs and try to help the UCs and the CSUs not bear the brunt of this cut. So we'd love to have, continue that conversation.

Thank you. Ms. Hadwick.

So I feel like the Governor's been very clear about his focus on education affordability. How is cutting the CSU this deep but putting it on the backs of the student tuition to cover that and weather that storm? How is that helping us make education affordable? This is for finance. Sorry.

Devin Mitchell with the Department of Finance. I. Well, I'm not sure quite what. I mean. Can you. Sorry, can you just repeat the question?

The Governor's been very clear about his focus on making education affordable. So we're making this huge drastic cut to CSUs. But you have been very clear that we're hoping for a student tuition increase to kind of weather that storm. How is that making education affordable for Californians?

How is the tuition increase?

How is this cut. I just feel like it's not what the Governor has been talking about for years and it's not what I think as Californians we have been messaging on. And I'm just, I'm very concerned. I have two kids in college and one a year away, one that goes to the Midwest.

It is considerably cheaper for him to go to school in the Midwest. And that's something we have to focus on our future workforce. We already have staffing shortages. So I think this is a huge mistake and I think we need to be investing in our kids. So it's okay if you don't have an answer.

I don't think you would. I didn't expect an answer, I guess.

Thank you, Mr. Muratsuchi.

Thank you. I wanted to echo my colleague from the North State to express bipartisan opposition to the proposed 8% cut to our California State University. You know, I believe the statistic is that one out of nine California University graduates are Cal State University graduates, Is that correct?

Sorry, I have to correct you. It's one out of 10. Ryan Storm from CSU, one out of 10. We're close. We'll take the Mulligan there. That's great.

Yeah, we know. I just came from Modesto with Governor Newsom where he was talking about the importance of training our future workforce. And we know that our California State University is the, it's the workhorse of educating our engineers and our teachers and, you know, so many vital professions that serve our communities.

And so, you know, rather than taking this DOGE-like approach for a 8% cut across the board for all departments, I think the Administration needs to be more thoughtful in terms of prioritizing the cuts. And I just want to put on the record my opposition to the 8% proposed cut for Cal State University. Thank you.

Thank you. I think that covers it for this item. Item number two is closely related to this, so I think the conversation will continue.

So we'll ask the panelists for item number two, which is issue two is the CSU enrollment update, where we will discuss CSU enrollment trends, future enrollment plans, and I highly anticipate the conversation about decisions on efficiencies to be related to this item. So with that, we will begin with the Department of Finance,

Devin Mitchell with the Department of Finance. Finance doesn't have any comments on this issue, but is available to answer any questions that members of the committee might have. Thank you.

Thank you. Legislative Analyst Office, do you have comments?

Yes. Thank you. Natalie Gonzalez with the Legislative Analyst Office. So the 24-25 Budget Act directed CSU to increase resident undergraduate enrollment by approximately 6,000 full time equivalent or FTE students. CSU reports that it will exceed this expectation, growing by approximately 9,000 resident undergraduate FTE students in 24-25.

The 24-25 Budget Act also included enrollment expectations for 25-26, and these expectations are included in the 25-26 Budget Plan. Specifically, CSU is expected to grow its resident undergraduate enrollment by approximately 10,000 FTE students in 25-26. We recommend that the Legislature hold CSU's enrollment expectation flat for 25-26 at CSU's projected 24-25 enrollment level.

We recommend holding enrollment expectations flat given the budget as discussed, does not provide CSU with additional state General Fund support in 2025-26. Therefore, if CSU were directed to enroll more students in 25-26 with the absence of associated funding, it would need to make further budget or programmatic adjustments that could negatively impact students.

Additionally, the 25-26 budget plan also directs CSU to grow resident undergraduate enrollment by another approximately 10,000 FTE students in 26-27.

Similarly, we recommend holding CSU's 26-27 resident undergraduate enrollment target flat at this time, but revisiting next year when the state will have more information on its fiscal condition as well as information regarding demographic trends and economic trends that could potentially impact CSU's enrollment in the future. Thank you and happy to take questions.

Thank you. We'll hear from the CSU system next.

Good afternoon, and thank you Chair Alvarez and Members for the opportunity to speak with you today. My name is Nathan Evans and I serve as the Deputy Vice Chancellor for Academic and Student Affairs and Chief Academic Officer at the CSU Chancellor's Office.

I want to begin by echoing the Chair's appreciation of the agenda and write up for today's hearing I which really provided a detail and thorough background on enrollment. Specifically, while the pandemic interrupted the CSU's two-decade history of continuous enrollment growth, we have resumed that trajectory over the past three years.

The CSU's commitment to serving Californians remains steadfast with 95% of students CSU students being California residents, and I'm pleased to report that the CSU has experienced enrollment growth of California residents for the second consecutive year.

Enrollment of California residents grew by more than 12,300 students, equal to 11,000 full time equivalent students over the previous college year, and 17 of the 23 universities experienced increases in enrollment from the previous year.

Among those students, the CSU enrolled a record 69,000 new first-year students from California this past fall, breaking the mark that we set just last year. That entering class mirrors the diversity of California.

Today, 56% of those new students identify as Latino and half of those students will be the first in their family to earn a college degree. We also witnessed increases in transfer students and graduate students for the first time since the pandemic, and our early indications for 25-26 are strong as well.

The CSU has also more than doubled our four year graduation rate through our Flagship Student Success graduation initiative 2025, because enrollment isn't just about new students, it's about supporting those students that are continuing their education and we're doubling down on our commitment to eliminate equity gaps that remain between historically underserved students and their peers.

These achievements are a result of intentional work to expand access, retain new students and support continuing students returning to higher unit loads, retaining students during summer session and re engaging students who stop out for a term while also acknowledging the additional work we need to do. The CSU system has taken strategic and proactive steps to address enrollment.

Recognizing that population, demographic and migration trends have changed patterns of enrollment, the CSU, as you heard about in the last panel, instituted a multi-year enrollment and budget reallocation plan.

That plan, predicated on the Multi Year Budget Compact, slowly transitioned enrollment targets and associated funding from campuses with sustained declines in enrollment to universities that have continued to experience demand. But given the retreat from the compact, that plan has been amended, lessening individual impact on universities.

We've also been directly supporting those campuses that have seen sustained enrollment declines, providing resources and technical assistance for enrollment planning, academic program reviews, and marketing. We're also working toward the delivery of a new system-wide strategic enrollment plan to be completed this fall that speaks to serving all types of learners in California.

But let me share a few examples, specific examples of these efforts. Last fall, the CSU partnered with the Riverside County Office of Education to launch California's first ever Direct Education Admissions Program, now the largest direct admission program in the nation.

As part of this initiative and leveraging California's Cradle to Career Data system, we notified via mail over 17,000 Riverside County High school seniors of their immediate admission to any of the 10 participating CSU campuses in the pilot without even starting an application for admission.

This proactive approach significantly reduces barriers and student anxiety by reassuring them that they already meet admissions requirements. The pilot has already resulted in a 21% increase in first year applicants from Riverside County. And building on the success, we're expanding direct outreach statewide through our partnership with the California College Guidance Initiative.

Beginning this fall, every 9th through 12th grader will, in districts that have already adopted CCGI, will receive annual progress communications on their preparation for the CSU. The partnership will also include direct admission offers for eligible 12th grade students in additional counties throughout the state.

We're also collaborating with California community colleges and high school counselors to ensure that transfer students are aware of their eligibility for our Transfer Success Pathway, our guaranteed dual admission initiative.

The program is supported by a transfer planner designed to help community college students map out transfer and to date, over 32,000 community college students have already created an account. And most recently, the CSU Office of the Chancellor has partnered with Compton College and other community colleges in the LA Basin to tackle pathways to the nursing profession as part of LA County Nursing 2035.

This collaborative partnership will deliver a set of recommendations based on mapping current and future nursing workforce opportunities and educational pathways to the bachelor's degree in nursing in LA County and collaboratively seek to address this need, this critical need in the workforce and community.

And lastly, at a very local level, with grant funding, Cal State San Marcos has launched an accelerated dual enrollment program focused on public health. The program equips students with the qualifications to earn a Community Health Education Specialist certificate, preparing them for careers as community health educators.

Students can complete their bachelor's degree in as little as three years, providing an accelerated pathway to the workforce. Yet all of these exemplars and this progress is threatened.

If the Governor's proposed budget for 25-26 is approved, it will place the CSU in dire fiscal circumstances, as you've heard, and our mission for the state and for our current and future students in jeopardy. Given the lead time needed for both admission of new students and class schedules for fall.

Universities, again, as you've heard, have already had to make critical decisions about capacity, discontinuing degree programs, reducing class actions, and curtailing plans for admission in spring and fall 26. Our system and our universities will continue to place a focus on strategic enrollment planning, ensuring access for Californians, and redesigning our universities to focus on holistic student success.

But that will not be sustainable if the CSU budget is cut. So again, I want to thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today and I'd welcome any questions at the close of this panel. Thank you.

Thank you. Appreciate the panelists.

Again, as in item number one, we spent a significant amount of time laying out for the public and for the Members of the Committee, a lot of different information to provide you with an overall picture on the enrollment issue and how that's impacting the ability for students to have access throughout our state through the CSU system.

So I hope you have a chance to dig in deep on these issues as we did. I think I'd start off with some comments and I'm happy to hear some of the initiatives such as the accelerated degree, the guaranteed admission. We know we still have problems with transfers though, as we saw in the audit not long ago.

I also am now old enough to recall that there was a graduation initiative at the CSU. I'm sure Mr. Muratsuchi remembers more than I do. I was here at the tail end of that. He was here as that was being formulated, so he remembers.

But you know, that was supposed to be one of the initiatives that helped with CSU, ensuring that students graduated on time and moved on. We did not include that in today's agenda, but it is not lost upon me that that was supposed to be a way to get more students.

And it has not turned out to be that way. The latest data that I saw from last year, I'm not sure, is there going to be data produced for this year, CSU?

This is Nathan Evans from the CSU Chancellor's office. That comes out each November. October, November, once all graduations are posted for the prior year through.

So we'll have our final numbers because I think this is the fifth year.

The tenth year.

Tenth year. So we're still deficient on that. We're still seeing the significant gaps in terms of graduation by many of the subgroups. Students are still taking more than the average, more than four years to graduate.

Many averaging and please chime in and correct me, six years or more. I believe that was roughly the last time the numbers I saw. So encouraged to hear about initiatives, but we need to see results with these initiatives.

I think the jury's still out on whether some of these will increase enrollment, but it sounds promising at least that there's more interest. Now, I do want to turn to some questions particularly, you know, I can't help but review page 15 on the agenda for everybody to take a look at.

And this is the enrollments data over the last several years. And it's really quite drastic. The differences between some campuses and other campuses. I circled only a few. I circled Fullerton, Long Beach, San Diego, San Luis Obispo and San Marcos.

From a total raw count number of students as the only ones who've had any real kind of growth in enrollment since 2021, with all the other ones either being relatively flat and then some losing ground at very, very high rates. Those stand out. Channel Islands, East Bay, San Francisco, Sonoma.

A quarter of enrollment drop or more for all of those, that is quite significant. I'm concerned certainly about that. We heard a little bit earlier about some consolidation, if you will, that that is taking place. I think Sonoma, San Francisco and East Bay were the ones mentioned.

But I question whether that is enough in order to maintain access for students in all parts of California and making sure that our campuses remain available to students, but whether those consolidations are going to be enough to be able to meet the needs of students. And so I guess that's my first question.

What is the anticipated impact of some of that consolidation as it relates to student access?

Thank you for the question. I'm presuming that you're directing that toward me at the chancellor's office. Nathan Evans at the CSU Office of the Chancellor. So you heard in the prior panel about some of the multi campus collaborations that are occurring.

At this moment in time, it is largely focused on administrative services, those that are more transactional, things like human resource benefits, finance. Those areas that are non student and instructionally focused. I will share.

At the same time, many of our campuses, to address the realities that they're facing in terms of enrollment, are also exploring the opportunity for multi campus collaboration across academic programs.

For example, multiple campuses may have a particular program or set of programs with lower enrollment, but yet we have the capacity and ability for online instruction a student at any CSU campus to take an online class at any other campus. So how can that be more strategically coordinated so that there's a rotation of offerings?

So we have those sort of in pilot now across a number of campuses. Although I will share that I think there will be greater interest to your question in terms of being able to maintain access to to disciplines across campus.

The reality is that it may not be, it will not be financially feasible for every university to offer every set of academic programs. And so that will. Those sort of strategic conversations are underway.

And I think first and foremost it's how can we creatively maintain access if that access may mean a more hybrid delivery model where there's a rotation of campuses that are offering courses so that students at any campus can still achieve that degree in that discipline?

Yeah, I also want to, and it was noted again in our agenda note some of to go to the point of initiatives and how successful they are. In the case of CSU Humboldt, there was a $400 million plus investment made one time and an additional $25 million ongoing every single year. Additional augmentation to their budget.

And we are seeing at Humboldt that they still have less students today than they had in 2021. What is happening with those investments and why aren't we seeing a return of more students with those investments?

Again, this is Nathan Evans, CSU Office of the Chancellor. So as you noted, the institution is now Cal Poly Humboldt. That investment helps support their transition from Humboldt State University to to a polytechnic institution that included investments in infrastructure to be able to offer more polytechnic, STEM and related programs than they did in the past.

And so a lot of that investment was about building the capacity to offer polytechnic programs. Now I will share that for the current college year that we're just closing out. Humboldt has slightly increased their enrollment. And by slightly I mean that they effectively are holding steady state.

They, as they approached that transition, had a multi-year plan of rebranding themselves as a polytechnic first and foremost and beginning to then build the pipeline of students to those new programs.

So to date most of that investment has been in building out degree programs that meet that sort of polytechnic identity, while they are also investing in sort of building the future pipeline. And it's just beginning to demonstrate, as I said in this current college year, some uptick in their actual headcount.

Are they at the expectation that the Legislature had when approved this expenditure of in terms of uptick or holding, was the expectation that in 2024-25 they'd basically be flat?

In their initial plans that they, again, this is Nathan Evans from the CSU Office of the Chancellor. They, Humboldt did project it would take a number of years.

I don't have their original plan in front of me to get back to even close to their prior peak enrollment, but that it really was about sort of transforming the University to deliver programs that were meeting future workforce needs which were in the polytechnic.

So they did foresee a multi-year trajectory to get back to a higher enrollment level.

I asked that question in comparison to, you know, as was stated in the report, total share of state costs per student is about $10,000, almost $11,000. And so for 433 million plus 25 million every single year. So now four years, we're talking over half a billion dollars of an investment.

We've seen zero additional students yet we've got four campuses, five campuses with thousand, around 1,000 plus more students. And I really doubt that we provided those campuses with the proportionate amount of augmentation that was done in the case of this one campus.

And so again as we face now, that was done during a time and a time of abundance. We are now in a time that we don't have the resources.

And so as we make these decisions, I think getting the information, the data as we make those decisions, as was stated in the previous panel and for us as a Legislature with the help of the LAO and in partnership with Finance, I would expect us to have expectations of how what we should be receiving in return of such investments so that when unfortunate times like these come around, we know how to make better informed decisions on where the cuts make most sense.

And to that point, I am curious as to whether on page 17 the two columns that are here with listing of the campuses in terms of the funding shift, of whether those shifts were proportionate to the growth or to the decline of enrollment at each one of these campuses. Can you speak to that CSU?

I can. This is Nathan Evans, CSU Officer the Chancellor, and Chair Alvarez, had you not asked that question, I was going to respond in relation to Humboldt specifically, but to the campuses that are all illustrated here.

As both I and my colleague in the prior panel mentioned, we're in the midst in the CSU of a multi-year enrollment and budget reallocation plan for those campuses that have seen sustained enrollment declines. And the benchmark that we've been using for these past two years has been 10% or more.

If their enrollment is 10% or more below their funded target, then they were subject to a percentage of their existing target being pulled back to the Chancellor's Office and being reallocated and redistributed to to the campuses in the right column that have seen sustained demand.

And so that was the share that was pulled back was consistent across all those campuses. Again, just using a 10% or more threshold for both the year you see reflected here and our most recent year and planning ahead and then it was reallocated to the campuses. There were nine in this particular year.

You have reflected looking ahead to next year, we're projecting there will be 10 campuses in that category eligible for receipt and it won't be growth. It's reallocation internally. And that's based on their demand. To your point, in terms of seeing sustained demand of new students as well as looking at their retention of continuing students.

Well, my concern as it relates to that is we have campuses that we've read about and I think we have it in the report somewhere with and I know some that stand out are San Luis,

And Fullerton, in addition to San Diego, that have high demand for Californians to attend those campuses and are being rejected from those campuses because there are no slots for them. And in the meantime, we've got campuses that remain to be open.

And this is a little bit related to what's happening with declining enrollment at our K-12 system where people, you know, districts, local districts make decisions, decisions to keep a lot of schools open, even though a lot less students are attending those schools. And there's certainly an issue of equity, certainly when it comes to University.

We want a system that works for people statewide. But as was stated in all the evidence and research, our CSU students are always—the majority, 95%, are California students. And so, this is not like the UC system, where we have a challenge with trying to increase the number of Californians.

This is Californians, and they are applying to our campuses, and they are not being able to enter those campuses.

And I think we need to fundamentally review this allocation of funding shift, while at the same time, and we should be able to do this, maintaining campuses throughout the state in a more efficient manner, so that we can identify things, like you shared with us today, of how to maintain courses open and career pathways open, using new models of teaching, throughout the state.

But I think there's some work that needs to be done because rejecting, you know, 100,000 plus students at some of these campuses is not, should not—never be what we should be doing.

And so, I think the—I'd like to see how, going forward, if there are augmentations or if there are reduced—a reduction in the proposed reductions that are before us, already—that we really focus on that we cannot continue to hold the float folks who do not have students attending, when we know that students want to go to these campuses.

So, work remains to be done, in that regard. I'll turn it over to Ms. Patel.

Thank you, Chair. I have a series of questions on enrollment. I'm trying to understand this a little bit better. Does enrollment decline, at specific sites, mirror the populations in those communities?

This is Nathan Evans from the CSU Office of the Chancellor.

So, as you sort of alluded to in your comments earlier, each of our educational systems are ecosystems, and there's mutual dependence there. Where we have largely seen declines, if you look geographically, are predominantly in parts of Northern California, and with the exception of, perhaps, CSU Channel Islands being an outlier, but largely mirroring the realities that are happening in their local communities as well.

In the Bay Area, you've seen reports of some community colleges looking to close or consolidate. Also, for example, in Sonoma county, we have identified Sonoma State, in terms of their sustained enrollment. The Santa Rosa School District looking to—is consolidating elementary and middle schools. So, yes, that has played out very similarly, to some degree.

In others, part of it is, I think, in other areas of the states, it's artifact of the pandemic and sort of the reshuffling of communities and populations. But largely, it has mirrored what's playing out in our—in our community colleges—and PK-12 schools as well.

So, then, if I'm understanding, it's not necessarily that these students are going out of state to seek opportunities at state schools in other states. It's that they're just not—they're not pulling from their local population, as they would have, in years past.

Or those populations have declined of high school—traditional age student populations. Yes.

Okay. And then, are—just trying to get to that. I think I understand. So, the hypothesis on the decline is directly related to declining enrollment, which may be directly connected to cost of living in California, why families are not growing, and why people aren't staying, et cetera, et cetera.

So, we have a systemic challenge we have to look at, in making California a lot more affordable, so our folks can stay. And the investments we put in them, TK through 12, we can realize that investment in a stronger, more educated workforce.

Going back to the Humboldt conversation with converting to a Cal Polytechnic, I see that San Luis Obispo has great demand. My daughter was sadly rejected from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. She's got great options, but it was one of her top choices. So, we know, as a family, how this works in our community.

Converting Humboldt to a Polytechnic may help offset some of those demands, but from my understanding, it takes time and money, and sustained, over a certain amount of time.

You know, some of the concerns that my Chair brought up, were, maybe we need to revisit that. I would argue that we need to stay strong and, perhaps even look at, can some of the learning in converting Humboldt into a Polytechnic be applied to Sonoma?

If the Polytechnics are the path forward that have increasing demand and create the opportunities that our students want to have, what does that look like? What have we invested in Humboldt's conversion that could be applied to learning at Sonoma State, perhaps, or for that region, all three of those, right?

Perhaps there's an opportunity with East Bay and San Francisco and Sonoma, something like that. I'm not proposing to know the answer.

Thank you so much for that series of questions. Nathan Evans, again, from the CSU Office of the Chancellor. Let me first state, as a parent of a high school senior, I have a child in a similar situation with some CSUs and other institutions. So, I appreciate the personal, lived experience in navigating that.

What I would want to begin with, in terms of also considering the realities for Cal Poly Humboldt, was that it has been among those campuses, you see on the left, that we have been slowly decreasing their enrollment target and associated funding.

So, while yes, the State made a very specific and strategic investment in that conversion, their other base dollars tied to enrollment have been reduced, over time.

You know, we are building in accountability to move our enrollment-based funding to the places across the state that have sustained demands. And you know, being mindful that we can't pull the rug out from any institution or the students it serves, we want to step that down, you know, very intentionally and thoughtfully, and we've been doing that.

That doesn't mean that those cuts aren't difficult to those campuses, to respond to that, but it is, it has been sort of aligned over multiple years. I will also say, as I mentioned in my opening comments, it was also calibrated to the multi-year compact, which is also not sustained in the same way.

And so, we are sort of continuously recalibrating that. I, I'll speak maybe specifically to Sonoma State, but then also recognize that some of this applies to a number of institutions that have seen sustained declines.

One of the considerations is it may not be a Polytechnic identity is the right one, but what has been occurring, on many campuses, is really closely examining their academic program portfolio.

And if that really is meeting the needs of their regional workforce, the state's workforce, as well as student interest of today, there's always some element of that in higher education occurring.

But now, given the sort of speed of change and also the sort of more public narrative, regarding return on investment and value of college degree, I think that there's much greater attention to that across universities. And so, they are taking hard looks at their program portfolio.

In the case of Sonoma State, I know that as they have—as requested by their local delegation—been working toward a turnaround plan or document to provide to their legislative delegation and others. Have really been looking at the regional needs in Sonoma and the North Bay, those being in healthcare and their public service workforce, as well as the wine industry in the region.

So, I anticipate, as they're working toward that document and that deliverable, that it will be very responsive to that. So, again, it may not be the Polytechnic identity, but it really is about reflecting the needs in their regional economy and their major employers. So, I see that occurring across the state in various ways.

And I think that, again, it may not look exactly like the transformation of Cal Poly Humboldt, but that really is the work that's being undertaken on every campus by faculty, by other leaders in partnership with their regional employers, and their strong community partners in PK-12 and community colleges.

So, a last full circle moment question. So, as CSUs look at all of these things, if there were cuts on the administrative side of the house, how would that work be done?

So, again, this is Nathan Evans from the CSU Office of the Chancellor.

So, you've heard about some of the work that's happening across campuses where we can—as I was with one of our Bay Area presidents last week, and as she described it, really the making cuts at the transactional level where they are not—and transactional in the business and operation of the institution.

And so, that's the starting point. I think, in looking at those administrative—we've mentioned several of them—be they in human resource benefits, in accounting, in purchasing, in IT support across campuses. One of the areas of my responsibility is working with our financial aid teams across our campuses.

And while we want to actually invest in support, direct support for students and families in navigating financial aid, the actual technical processing of financial aid could be consolidated in the background. So that sort of—that financial processing—and IT that has to happen to deliver aid. Doesn't have to happen 23 times.

It could be happening regionally or more centrally, not affecting the student and family experience. So, really looking for those administrative cuts and consolidation and efficiencies that can be done, as far away from the classroom and the student experience. That's where our work is beginning.

And at the same time, as I mentioned earlier, on the academic front, looking across campuses and ensuring that we can sustain access to programs, across the state, in different ways and modalities. So, it will be a combination of those.

Thank you for that, and I guess that's why it's better to leave those decisions around the cuts to the various sites, as they work out what works best and how they can build efficiencies. So, thank you for having that full circle moment with me. Thank you.

All right, Ms. Hadwick, do you have any questions? No, okay. I have a few questions. So, this point that Chair Alvarez raised, and I'm seeing in the Staff Analysis that San Diego State had an admission rate of about just under 40%—that more than 116,000 applications and admitted 44,000, so more than 60,000 students were rejected, who wanted to go to a CSU.

Are they offered slots—I don't know, I apologize if this was covered before I came in, but. It was?

No, it wasn't.

Okay. Okay. Yeah. So, are they offered slots at other CSU campuses?

Thank you for the question. Nathan Evans, from the CSU Office of the Chancellor. And yes, there are sort of two components.

If a CSU-eligible student is not offered admission to a first-choice campus, their application is redirected, and the student has agency in that process to identify where they would like to—as many as they would like to be redirected to other CSUs with available capacity.

They're also offered the opportunity to pursue the transfer pathway that I mentioned, which is our guaranteed dual-enrollment program through a local community college. So, they have, sort of, two options if they are not admitted to a more selective campus.

So, in other words, if they wanted to, if they get—they didn't get into San Diego State, but they wanted to stay close to San Diego, they can enroll in a San Diego area community college with a guaranteed admission to?

Yes.

Would that be a guaranteed admission to San Diego State or to any CSU campus?

They have the option. It could be San Diego State. They have that option. The criteria for those programs may vary by major, given just the capacity of those. But yes, it could be a guarantee to that initial campus like San Diego State.

And in general, we talked about a lot of, you know, reasons why some are—campuses—have a much higher demand than other campuses. Is the biggest driving factor that most students want to stay close to home?

Again, Nathan Evans from the CSU Office.

We, we, we know who you are. You don't have to repeat...

Protocol. I want to make sure I always...

You must be from the military or something. Yeah.

So, if we look at California geographically, two-thirds of the State's population lives in the bottom third of the state, to begin with. And so, we know that in today's environment, and so, we know demand is greater—that students do want to stay closer to home. And so, that is where we've continued to see that.

So, it is large—largely driven by location. There are a few campuses, and you referenced a few—a couple—that really do appeal and have attraction statewide, some that are more residential than others. But yes, the bulk of our CSU students, not only before they entered the CSU, but upon graduation, stay in those regions.

And so, related to this conversation, you know—I know we've mentioned this before in this Committee—but my biggest irritation is when I see an Arizona State University building in downtown LA, or hearing about—I don't know if ASU's in the audience. But we have great California public universities.

And yet, I see all the students that are leaving our state to go elsewhere. You know, I mean, I don't see—I'll just continue to pick on Arizona—but I don't see what—I'm going to lose all the University of Arizona, Arizona State University votes—but I don't see what those campuses have over our Cal State universities.

Why would they be going there, as opposed to staying—going—to a California State University?

So, I appreciate the question. So, I referenced in my comments that we're in the midst of a system-wide strategic enrollment management plan, and working with some national partners, to help understand and unpack decision making, which is sometimes difficult to understand, particularly for 18 to 24-year-olds, but also about adult learners.

We know that perception, sometimes of ease of accessibility, plays a role in that.

But one of the steps that we're undertaking is there are about 10,000 students annually from California that participate in the Western Undergraduate Exchange Program, the WUE program, which is for any of the, I think 16 Western states, where it's not—it's not in state tuition, but it's a discount in the western region.

And as part of that, we're actually working with about four to five of those institutions outside of California that draw and attract those students—to actually have focus groups with some of those students that have left the state—and better understand exactly your question.

And so, we hope that that activities like that, as well as just raising awareness of opportunities and the flexibility of our own programs, will help mitigate some of that. But I deeply appreciate the question. It's something that we're exploring as part of that work as well.

Yeah, I mean, I just see it as such an insult to our California universities, but I won't belabor that point. Let's see. I know I have some other—oh yeah. So, you know, addressing Sonoma, I mean, just on this theme of like marketing—appealing—our Cal State University campuses better.

I mean, we talked a lot about, you know, how making Humboldt a Cal Poly, and you know, building that program and rebranding the campus can hopefully translate into a rebound in their enrollment. I understand that some progress is already, you know, some indication of progress is being seen.

But like, you know, I recently heard, you know, that Sonoma State, main heart of Sonoma Valley, world-famous wine country, doesn't have like a wine science degree or like a winery degree, you know, first, is that true?

Sonoma State has a Wine Business Degree, but not a viticulture or more agriculturally-focused program.

Okay. And so, I mean, to me, like, that seems like a great example of how our California State University needs to do a better job of marketing, you know, our assets. Not just our, you know, our academic assets, rebranding Humboldt to a Cal Poly, but the, you know, the geographic assets.

I mean, who wouldn't want to come to the heart of Napa and Sonoma Valleys to learn and to get into the wine industry? I would love to enroll in that major. Yeah.

I mean, has there been any conversations like that about how CSU can get more creative and more effective in marketing all the assets that we have to offer?

So, I really appreciate that question, and I would say yes, and. So, yes, sort of marketing and sort of telling our CSU story and the experiences and the support that exists for our students.

And I think, as was referenced in some of the questions and dialogue thus far, there's also a need to really examine our academic program portfolios and ensure that the programs that are available today are meeting the needs of those regions and the interests of students today. And I think that work is undergoing—ongoing—right now.

And I would also say that, you know, a component, even though I referenced earlier, a significant portion of our students generally originate from within a 50-mile radius of most of our campuses.

In Sonoma State's experience—and I can speak with some more specificity, I did a three-month tenure as acting President at Sonoma State, last summer—that the reality is that the university is working very closely to build college going culture in their region. While the State of California has achieved an A through G completion rate somewhere in the neighborhood, of, you know, surpassing 50%, Sonoma County is far below that, as are Mendocino and Lake County, as well.

And so, they have also recognized there's an opportunity to even, in some cases, intrusively participate and engage with their PK-12 partners, to help raise the preparation level and, in partnership in their case with Santa Rosa Junior College, to build that local population, while also then working to market and present themselves to students across California, as a viable—financially viable—successful option for them, as well.

So, I think it is a "Both, and"—participating in and engaging their local community, while also thinking about the ways that they market to future students.

All right, thank you. Any further questions? Yes, of course.

Sorry, I meant to ask this one earlier. I was very taken with your—sorry, to the Chancellor's Office—with your narrative around the nursing workforce specialty programs.

Can we do something similar for education, special education, dual-credential, and all the related career pathways, behavioral health, OT, et cetera, that education is in high demand for right now, that we're not able to fill?

Yes. I referenced the nursing pathway as one particular area. We've been working very closely in the behavioral health through some support through HCAI, in terms of supporting mental health specialist degrees. 10 of our campuses are participating in rolling those out as early as this fall—will be the first programs on the ground.

And the reference I made to San Marcos, theirs is going to be built into their dual-enrollment program with Vista Unified, so it can be completed in three years. So that is another pathway we're looking and also mapping the work for. And I was just with our Deans of our Colleges of Education last week.

And so, the interest in really mapping that and again, telling our CSU story in that space, is of interest. So, yes, those are areas we're, we're heavily focusing on.

Thank you. And just a shout out to San Marcos. They're doing a great job with also building housing, so we can have students from all over California come in and get those, those degrees and then go back to their home communities and serve their local people. Thank you.

All right, thank you very much. Seeing no further questions from the Committee, I'd like to move on to Issue Number 3, Capital Fellows Proposal. Let me turn over to the Department of Finance.

Okay. Hello again. Devin Mitchell with the Department of Finance. The budget also includes approximately $1.3 million ongoing General Fund to support a salary increase for the Capital Fellows, who are employed through the CSU Center for California Studies. These funds would allow Fellow salaries to increase from $3,253 per month to $4,888 per month.

The Center has indicated the current level of compensation is an obstacle in recruiting and retaining Fellows in the four programs across state organizations, thanks.

LAO?

Thank you. Natalie Gonzalez with the Legislative Analyst Office. We do have some concerns with the proposal that I'd like to bring up. So firstly, the Center indicated that a 50% salary increase was necessary due to a new federal regulation, but this regulation was actually vacated at the end of 2024.

We met with the Center, and they shared with us that even though this regulation was vacated, a salary increase is still warranted due to rising cost of living, so to help Fellows afford that, and then also to keep the program competitive with similar programs in the state.

Additionally, salaries for Capital Fellows are not adjusted annually for rising cost of living or inflation. The last time that salaries were increased was in 2022-'23. Additionally, the Center has shared with us that some applicants turned down the Fellowship due to its current salary level.

And when looking at programs that the Center notes are competitors to Capital Fellows, the salaries for Capital Fellows are lower. Given these reasons, we recommend the Legislature approve a 10% salary increase for Fellows.

This would help fellows afford rising cost of living and keep the program competitive, while committing fewer ongoing General Fund resources, at the time when the state is facing projected budget deficits.

In addition, to alleviate the Center having to submit a salary increase request every few years, we recommend the Legislature adopt provisional language in the Budget Act, authorizing an annual cost of living adjustment for Fellows' salaries, to begin in '26-'27. Thank you and happy to take any questions.

All right. I see my friend, Leonor Ehling, please. Welcome.

Thank you. Leonor Ehling, with the Center for California Studies and the Capital Falls Program. So, our Fellows currently earn $3,253/month, which is about $18.77/hour. We understand our role to be—to try to—recruit folks that represent the diversity of the stat: geographic diversity, ethnic, racial, income diversity, first gen.

And it's hard to do that at the, at the current salary level. So, we appreciate any—we appreciate the Administration's support of the Jan.10 increase and current and past support of the Legislature.

Thank you. Questions from the Committee. Ms. Hadwick?

So, I have a fellow staffer. He is amazing. I just was reading this, and it seems like a lot of money. I just looked up the average public-school teacher in Sacramento, and it's $57,000. I feel like it needs to be maybe adjusted and have increases for the next few years. It just seems very, very excessive.

I know they work hard. They do great. It just seems excessive. So, that's just my comment.

Okay. Hopefully you'll keep your, your Fellow who's working.

Yeah, well, he's got it. He's not a Fellow anymore.

Oh, okay.

Yes, of course.

But also, we aren't—when we were hiring, they're not considering that as their time served in their year. Like my, my Fellow had that issue, so, then he didn't qualify for a certain position because he didn't have the years.

So, if we're going to pay them this much because we value them—value them this much—we need to count that time that they serve, as they should be counted as a state employee for that time. So, just to add on.

Okay, thank you. Dr. Patel? No? So, yeah, just the Chair referenced how old I am, but yeah, I remember when I was coming out of college, the Assembly Incentive Fellows programs that I applied to was paying $22,000, but that was way back in the 1980s, yeah.

But you know, on that point, I didn't see any comparison in the staff analysis to the Assembly and Senate Fellows programs. Is the salary comparable?

So, they—all four programs make the same—make the same amount.

Okay. And, okay, so it's the Capital Fellows that that's—I was thinking Capital was Executive, but it's the Assembly, Senate, and Executive Fellows. All right. Seeing no further questions. I will thank you for the presentation. And we will keep that item open, and move on to Issue Number 4, Title IX Update.

And would like to invite Peter Lim. Yes.

Good afternoon, Members of this Subcommitee. My name is Peter Lim and I serve as the Executive Advisor for Civil Rights Programming and Services at the California State University Chancellor's Office.

Today I'm here to provide an update on CSU's system wide efforts to prevent and combat sexual harassment, comply with Title IX, and to highlight how our University partners support students and employees affected by Title IX misconduct.

I'm pleased to report that at the Chancellor's Office and across all 23 of our campuses, we have worked diligently to build a strong, resilient team dedicated to caring, dedicated to creating and sustaining an inclusive, supportive campus environment that is free from discrimination.

At the CSU, we have a system wide non discrimination policy that defines sexual harassment and clearly outlines the reporting and investigation process. In March 2025, we updated this policy to align with the recent change in federal regulations.

As you may be aware, In July of 2023, after completing an audit of the CSU's handling of sexual harassment reports, the California State Auditor found that the CSU had not done enough to address reports of sexual harassment. The findings were a call to action that spurred the creation of our Office for Civil Rights Programming and Services.

The State Auditor issued 16 recommendations for the CSU. I'm pleased to report that we have completed 15. Excuse me. I'm pleased to report that we have successfully completed 15 recommendations due to date and earlier this month we notified the California State Auditor of the completion of the latest items for their review.

The final recommendation involves an enterprise level case management system and we are working with it to ensure successful implementation that will be completed by July 2026 as required by the State Auditor. To strengthen our efforts, the Chancellor's Office has tripled its Title IX and civil rights team from 5 to 15.

This substantial increase in staffing has allowed us to provide enhanced support to each campus by offering direct access to a civil rights attorney and specialist. These professionals collaborate regularly with their assigned campuses by assessing all new reports, helping their assigned campuses determine appropriate next steps.

This has created a new level of consistency, oversight and professional development for our campuses. Transparency and accountability are essential to building trust with our community Members. To foster these values, every campus now publishes data and statistics on their websites quantifying the results of their work. Additionally, we have implemented regular evaluations of each campus's Title IX program.

Recently, we conducted a full review at five campuses to assess the effectiveness of their Title IX programs. A report summarizing these reviews is published on our website, making it publicly accessible and further demonstrating our commitment to transparency and accountability.

Each December under SB808 and SB 1166, we provide a report to the Legislature on the number of cases per campus and the length of time for cases to be closed. We also provide a report to the CSU's Board of Trustees each and every time the board convenes.

As we move forward, we will continue to build on the lessons learned from past audits in our program reviews, ensuring that the CSU system leads the way in providing a supportive and responsive environment for our communities. We are dedicated to maintaining this momentum, working closely with campus leaders, faculty, staff, and students to create lasting and positive change.

Thank you. Happy to answer any questions you may have.

Thank you. Any questions from the Committee on Title, the Title IX update. I can start. So, you know, I was thinking earlier about, you know, if the. Any budget cuts being proposed for the CSU can be focused on Administration and not on, you know, the classroom instruction or the student services that directly impact the students.

But I think this would be an example. I mean, you talked about how the Title IX program, Cal State, has increased the staffing from 5 to 15. And so do you know, first of all, like, how the 8% proposed cut for Cal State CSU statewide, how that would impact your Title IX program?

What I can say is that last year, during the fiscal year, we earmarked $16.9 million to increase our civil rights programming and services that we provide to each campus.

That was stemming from the results of the CSA or the California State Auditor's recommendations that we do that work and build that system of care for our students, staff and faculty. We want to increase that momentum, and we need to increase that momentum pursuant to those recommendations.

So to build that momentum, we would need to increase the budget for those services. The specific number, I don't know.

Mm. Okay. And as is pointed out, am I correct in understanding that the CSU Title IX program is not just addressing and investigating complaints, but a lot of it is on prevention and training?

Yes, both prevention and education, of course, to decrease the incidence, in hopes to decrease the incidence of sexual harassment, but also in response to reports and complaints, both reports, by providing those individuals who are impacted by those behaviors with support and care, and also by providing them access to investigation should they want some sort of disciplinary consequence against their reported offender.

And my last question is. Do you. See any additional work or any changes coming to your program if the United States Department of Education and their Title IX compliance program is dismantled?

I don't know that their programming will be dismantled. Their priorities may shift to focus on aspects of discrimination outside of Title IX focusing specifically on areas like Title 6.

So their office for Civil Rights, which is their enforcement agency under the Department of Education for discrimination and harassment, their priorities may shift, but the compliance or the desire, the responsibility to comply with non discrimination laws at both the state and federal law remain the same.

The requirement remains, but with the reduction in employees and the resources, I would imagine that would result in a reduction in the capacity to investigate and enforce Title IX at the federal level.

I think that's a very logical extension. We haven't seen that shift or that decrease in enforcement action by the Federal Governments Office for Civil Rights.

Yes.

Yes. Thank you. Correct.

Thank you. Ms. Patel.

Hi. Thank you for your presentation. I have a more technical question. Do we track in our data the complaints, the statistics around student versus student, student versus faculty, or faculty or staff and staff complaints?

We do. We track both reporting from, from whom, who makes reports and alleged by whom. So who's alleged to have committed the harm? So we track both sides, both students we try to attract. We track even further data than just demographics related to student status or affiliation to the University. We track demographics on race, ethnicity, gender.

And so we try to track as much data as possible. The goal in reporting out this data is really to remove barriers in gender trust and increase transparency so that we engender some trust among our campus community Members to access our services should they experience harm.

So through this reporting out of data in as granular detail as we can, we try to provide that information to those that are interested.

Yeah, Those concerned parties don't feel like they're alone.

Yes.

When they see that other people have filed complaints.

And to your point, Dr. Patel, another aspect of what we report out is also the outcomes of our investigations. We appreciate that those who are interested in pursuing an investigation are going to go through a calculus on whether it's worth their investment of time and investment of energy, reputation. Yes, exactly. Thank you.

And part of that calculus is knowing what percentages, what's the outcomes, and what are the likely outcomes should someone pursue an investigation. So we track the investigation side as well.

And then do we see, when we look at that data, do we see patterns like certain types of harassment complaints come through certain types of interactions or relationships versus others, do we see patterns and then do we adjust our training based on those patterns that we see?

That's absolutely correct. And so we are always checking for patterns and trends because we want to be responsive to those patterns and trends. I can speak for one particular campus, which is San Jose State. We notice certain patterns and Trends during academic year 2324.

We, we adjusted our trainings to address those patterns and trends and saw an output from that input which was a decrease in that pattern in that trend of behavior, at least in the fall semester of 2024.

Thank you. That's very reassuring. Appreciate your work.

Thank you. Okay. Thank you very much for presentation. We appreciate you being here.

Thank you. Chair Alvarez.

Thank you. We are moving on to issue five, which is an update from Chula Vista Work Subcommitee will discuss CSU's involvement in the Chula Vista University now initiative and interest in the regional Educational centers approach. As I mentioned at the beginning of the meeting, this is an innovative approach to providing access to higher education in a.

You wouldn't think so San Diego, but a part of San Diego which we would refer to as a college desert, where lack of access to University programs, especially in light of what we just heard earlier with the impacted campus at San Diego State University and how many students are being turned away.

A lot of students who wish to continue their education do not have access to a four year degree. The community of Chula Vista has been working on this issue for quite some time and the CSU has gotten involved a little bit.

And so we're hearing an update today on that from the California State University Chancellor's Office and also from Southwestern Community College. So with that I think we'll start. Do you have a preference? Have you talked about who wants to go first? Thank you so much.

CSU go first. All right, very good. Good afternoon again and thank you Chair Alvarez and Members for the opportunity to speak with you on this topic. Again, my name is Nathan Evans. I serve as the Deputy Vice Chancellor for Academic and Student affairs and Chief Academic Officer at the CSU Chancellor's Office.

Let me begin by appreciating the legislators and specifically the Assembly's interest in expanding access to higher education in regions of the state with limited access to four year institutions.

Through the appropriation included with the budget Bill of 2024, the CSU distributed $2.5 million each to support expanded higher education in the Chula Vista South San Diego region as well as the North Bay north coast region.

2.5 million for from the state budget was allocated to San Diego State University as this was augmented and this was augmented with 1.25 million in one time funds from the office of the Chancellor to CSU San Marcos to really undertake this as a more regional collaborative and support academic program growth in Chula Vista.

Both universities do have a long history of an engagement and partnership with the Sweetwater Union High School District and with Southwestern College to promote access to a CSU degree and as they've considered and planned for how these investments can expand access.

Both institutions have prioritized academic programs that expand workforce aligned degrees Nursing, Public Health, Business, Computer Science among others how the resources can further develop or upgrade facilities and equipment to support high quality instruction and how they can boost student success through scholarships, advising, mentoring and career counseling.

Each we ask each University to develop an initial plan that was submitted to the CSU Office of the Chancellor earlier and was calibrated with the strategic plan developed by the City of Chula Vista in its Vision for the University and Now initiative.

I will share that this work continues to evolve and has been augmented since those initial proposals. So I believe my colleague may share some of the more recent developments in this work.

But to give a brief overview, San Diego State plans multiple programs in Nursing at the new Millennial Library starting this fall, including a Bachelor of Science in Nursing, an Associate degree to Bachelor of Science and a Doctor of Nursing Practice. They're working to all of those.

They also plan to complement those degree programs with professional certificates in Cybersecurity, Human Resources and Construction Engineering, as well as looking at offering even non credit programming and career skills.

And through their OSHER Lifelong Learning, they have identified several other areas on sort of a long range plan contingent on additional support areas in Homeland Security, Physical Therapy, athletic training, Teacher education and educational counseling.

And complementing those plans, San Marcos in partnership with Southwestern initially identified programs for immediate development in Business Administration, a two plus two program, an ADN to BSN, Nursing, both an online and a concurrent enrollment option, Speech, Language Pathology and Public Health.

And they also identified a number of longer range plans including potentially modeling the program I described in my earlier testimony with the with the Vista Unified School District with Sweetwater in the future. Lastly, I'll just say that we see this multi University approach as a model to serve regional higher education needs.

Similar approaches have been employed in other states and we have also engaged those University systems about their lessons learned. And while the initial allocation has allowed the CSU and our partners to jumpstart this important work, realizing potential will require sustained investment and commitment.

I would be remiss if I didn't say that the proposed budget cut to the CSU threatens this type of work and the ability to advance it and other innovative approaches that we've talked about today. Thank you again for the opportunity to update and share more about this and would welcome any questions.

Thank you. Turn to Southwestern College now.

Thank you. Zenita Incarnacion at Southwestern College. Chair Alvarez and Members of the Subcommitee, thank you for the opportunity to speak today on behalf of Southwestern College. I want to express our appreciation for the California State University System and particularly San Diego State University and Cal State San Marcos for their steadfast partnership in our region.

Shared Efforts to Expand Access to Higher Education South San Diego County remains one of the largest regions in California without a public University.

Recognizing this gap, Southwestern College, with the City of Chula Vista, with support from our Assembly Member, convened the University Now Initiative, a regional academic planning effort intended not to replace or compete with our University partners, but to support their long term expansion and success in the region.

The UNI initiative was grounded in two principles that academic planning for the City of Chula Vista's University Innovation District must be thoughtful, coordinated and data driven and two that the higher education planning in our region must reflect an ecosystem approach bringing together education, workforce, civic, business and community partners in alignment.

More than 50 entities, including our local public universities, participated in this work. Together we conducted a workforce and academic needs assessment to identify the priority occupations in our region, the degrees that were required to get these occupations, and the gaps in program availability at the region or the state level.

The results of that effort produced actionable recommendations that have informed local decisions and appear in broader conversations around policy and funding. These shared insights have been foundational not only for Southwestern College, but for our continued collaboration with CSU partners in shaping what comes next at Southwestern College. We've remained committed to implementing the report's recommendations through partnerships.

In addition to the Millennia site in Chula Vista, our University center will open this spring and this will incubate our University programs through our partnerships until the larger University Innovation District is ready for move in Working closely with San Diego State and Cal State San Marcos, we have aligned our facility planning and academic structures to support program development in areas like public Administration, community health and wellness, counseling, kinesthesiology, bilingual speech, language pathology, business analytics, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence and sustainability to refine the programs that were identified in the CSU report submitted to the Legislature in response to faculty support opportunities to leverage funding and resources and it's really this ongoing local dialogue that has allowed us to pivot and allow the program expansion to be more focused and strategic as our region moves forward towards activating the full vision for the uid.

We recognize the importance of regional coordination in governance and decision making.

It's concepts that are explored in legislation such as AB662, which proposes a shared governance model for the UID and AB 664 which considers workforce aligned bachelor's degree expansion in underserved regions reflect many of the themes that emerged from the UNI report and from our on the ground collaboration.

We appreciate the opportunity to be part of these conversations as they evolve. Southwestern College remains committed to enabling and supporting our CSU partners and to serving as a collaborative partner, ensuring regional needs and state priorities remained aligned. Our voter approved $800 million bond positions U.S.

to grow our facilities in tandem with program expansion and our long standing partnership such as the Compact for Success with SDSU which now transfers over to the community college demonstrates that regional models of collaboration are both effective and scalable. We appreciate the Committee's support and we thank you for your continued leadership and I'm available for questions.

Thank you both. Appreciate you being here. I think I want to underscore again that this is an oversight item direction given by the Legislature and in very just sort of high level terms is already detailed I think in really specifics that are useful.

The intent here is not to recreate something that isn't going to be effective and that isn't going to be what is needed.

As was stated, the report, the UNI report identifies the exact degrees that are needed not to duplicate what's already happening in the region, but to really identify what the gaps are and where the workforce needs to receive the skill set in order to perform those jobs that are currently vacant and that we anticipate into the future.

And so I think that it's a model that, as we talk about what's happening other places statewide that we really need to focus in on making these data driven decisions based on what the market conditions are, what the business sectors are, where the growth opportunities are.

And I think students want to go to places that are going to get them a job at the end of the day.

And I think this particular work, because it's focused on that, is very intentional on that and with just a couple $1.0 million of investment is now creating true University opportunity and slots for students in a part of California that has long been seeking that and really has deserved it.

So I wanted to make sure we share this with all of you because I think it's a good approach as we all look forward to providing more higher educational opportunities throughout the state in places that don't have them.

On how we can work collaboratively between systems and breaking down those silos because we cannot afford to all work on our own. We have to work together in order to make sure we accomplish these goals of higher education and access for our future workforce. So I want to thank you for presenting.

I don't have any specific questions just yet, but I'll turn it over to my colleagues. Ms.

Patel, I have just a couple of comments. I want to share appreciation, as the chair shared in your process, your methodical approach. And I think this kind of approach and system that you've set up is easily transferable to other systems and other regions that are looking for filling education access gaps.

The other thing that really stood out to me from my public education background is you talked about bilingual speech language pathology. Wow. Is that a need in California or what? So thank you for filling that gap as well.

I think when you add that bilingual component in there, it also crosses the multicultural approach as some cultures don't look at speech language pathology as something to manage. And it's so essential that we get that right culturally. So thank you for doing that work. You really spoke to me today. Thank you.

Thank you. Nothing from the other colleagues. I just want to ask one question. Just because it piqued my interest in the report, CSU may be considering other sites similar to Chula Vista. Can you talk about what analysis you're going through to maybe, as was stated by my colleague Dr.

Patel, the issue of transferability of what we learned through this process?

Zero, absolutely. Again, Nathan Evans from the CSU Office of the Chancellor there, you know, one of the spaces that we look to, I think now going back to 201718 there was a legislative request to identify potential areas of demand across the state that were unmet, that included Chula Vista as well as other regions.

That has been one document and report and process we have gone back to to examine through this more collaborative lens. Is that an approach that might be viable in those spaces as well?

I'd also I referenced in my comments that we have consulted with other University systems in other states that have taken this approach, specifically the Texas A and M System and the University of Maryland system in some of their more particularly rural regions of their states have taken this regional educational center model where multiple universities from their system are delivering in partnership, always with a community college or more than one community college delivering on site and hybrid instruction.

So we're sort of using those lessons learned from our colleagues in other state systems as well. As I mentioned that legislative, that report to the Legislature on CSU capacity from about seven years ago as a starting point for sort of taking that examination more broadly.

Yeah, I think sometimes it sounds insurmountable to do more with less, but think this is an example of perhaps we can Do a lot with, maybe not as much would be the way to put it. And the collaborative approach is really key. If there isn't collaboration, this is not going to work.

Because the community college can bring something to the table. Perhaps as was mentioned by the testimony, we have challenges and we won't get into the details, but with the classroom space and, and University learning space, I would say that's why we do have a Bill out there for a bond.

But there are needs at campuses to be able to serve students. And why not partner with other institutions of higher education like our community colleges, who perhaps may have access to those resources and create those spaces, physical spaces, but then bring in our University partners in order to provide the academic component of a higher education degree.

You know, I love hearing about the two plus two programs. Certainly the accelerated degrees approach I think is one that it needs to be further considered, I guess as a new approach.

I think just generally, and it goes to the theme of the other items before us earlier is we're going to have to do things a little bit differently. You talked about guaranteed admissions, you know, and really CSUs, just like our community colleges are, should be open for anyone and everyone. There are no barriers to community college.

And when you create these partnerships, you extend those. The lack of barriers or the improved access, I would say to CSU. And so I think that's where this is the win, win for everybody. And so I think the opportunity certainly exists.

And again, I think it's a model that may be replicable that we could share with other parts of the state. So that I know that there are folks in the Central Valley and rural areas concerned with programs like around nursing.

We definitely need to find ways to prepare our future workforce and certainly in that industry, but in many others as well. And so I'm looking forward to where this goes from now. I appreciate San Diego State University and CSU San Marcos through the CSU system stepping up to be part of this first phase of what's to come.

No, I don't know if Southwestern College has any other comments they'd like to make.

No, I really appreciate the CSU system as well. I think I wanna also recognize our Sweetwater Union High School District. They'll be moving in a middle college onto the Chula Vista Southwestern College campus. I think we're talking about three systems in Chula Vista that we're really integrating.

And it's a very exciting time for us in South County who we haven't had access to higher education. And I think when we're kind of coming out and marrying all three systems now. And I. We love the opportunity to speed it up for our students who've waited for so long. So thank you for your leadership. Assemblymember Ms.

Hadwick has, I think, some comments or questions.

I represent the north, So I have 11 counties and no CSU. Chico is our closest, and it's four hours for most of my district. I would love to extend that conversation and help in any way I can to get a campus up there.

We do have a lot of community colleges, which is great, but even, like, for our county, the kids are going two to three hours away. So I would love to be a proponent on that and get rural access there.

Also for my colleague, Assemblyman Wallace isn't here today, so I have a question that I'm supposed to ask you for him. He wanted to ask questions about CSU's plan to improve service offerings at the Palm Desert campus and the opportunities to develop a standalone CSU campus. I know he's been wanting one for a long time.

Is there any updates on any of that?

Again, this is Nathan Evans from the CSU Office of the Chancellor. There's not an update on, in terms of any particular actions toward a separate institution.

I think, as we describe, as you've heard over several of the panels today, you know, I think some we are really looking at more innovative and creative ways to deliver educational access across the state. And I appreciate your own personal reference to the north state and the need.

And so really, it has been about investing and being creative in the spaces and infrastructure that we have, as well as leveraging hybrid educational opportunities. Those may not be suitable or appropriate for everyone, but really maximizing access and awareness to those as well as another point of access. So thank you for the question.

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. Thank you for presenting today.

Thank you for asking that. And I will definitely comment with Mr. Or share with Mr. Wallace that this is a different approach, that for a long time this community had an expectation, I would say, of another UC campus, another CSU campus. And the reality is we are not in a position really to do that.

And so we need our public education institutions to work together.

And here you're talking about the High School District of all the students who live in this service area, the community college district that serves all the students, and then the major institutions that are nearest to, definitely much closer than a couple of hours, but still seems to be far away from an access standpoint, very limited because of.

The competition to get in the application. So I think this is likely a good model that I would love to share more about how this has come together, but it's more of accepting the realization that we're not going to build another campus. But that doesn't mean we can't provide access.

There's ways to do so and there's an example here. So thank you both, appreciate you being here. And again, this was an oversight item so we will not be taking a vote on this. Just as a reminder, issue number six is a non presentation item.

The Department of Finance will not formally present this this item but is available to answer any questions of the subcommitee. If there are any questions, I see none. So we will move on to issue number seven which is state library reductions.

The library reductions proposed for the state library are based on the operational and position cuts are included in the 2024 Budget Act. So we will have a presentation from the Department of Finance. Then we will hear from the Legislative Analyst Office and then we will hear from our State Librarian. The Librarian's Office. We'll kick it off with finance please.

Hello again, Devin Mitchell with the Department of Finance. The budget maintains the statewide efficiency reductions included in the 2024 Budget Act.

As a result, the State Library should continue planning for a reduction of approx or of 7.95% in ongoing General Fund support which totals approximately 2.4 million beginning in the 2020 sorry, 2024/25 fiscal year.

Meanwhile, implementation of the vacancy savings adjustment will eliminate 10 positions 10 unfilled state library positions valued at an estimated 1.2 million ongoing general fund. Thank you.

Please thank you Mr. Chair and Members, Ian Klein with the LAO. As you heard from Department of Finance, the operational savings are in line with what was established in the 24/25 Budget Act. Just to highlight some of the components of these savings here concerning Control Section 4.05.

Unlike some other State entities such as the Student Aid Commission, CSAC or the Community College Chancellor's Office, for example, the state library was subject to the full 7.95% reduction. This equates to a 2.4 million reduction in state operations support. The administration provided the state library with flexibility in determining how to achieve that reduction.

State library plans to meet this target by reducing funding for some programs as well as eliminating some full time positions, as page 38 of your agenda shows. It's our understanding that the library opted to reduce funding for programs that have other Fund sources such as private sector partnerships, philanthropic support or endowments.

Among Other Fund sources concerning Control Section 4.12. As previously mentioned, the State Library was also subject to the vacant position sweep. The positions associated with this sweep can be found on page 39 of your agenda. And this action resulted in 10 positions being eliminated with an associated savings of 1.2 million.

When the two control section actions are combined, the library's state operations support decreases by about 3.7 million, or roughly 12%. And what you'll be hearing about today is how the State Library is managing those cuts. I'll pause my comments there, but can answer questions as needed.

All right. Hello. Good afternoon. I'm Rebecca Wendt, the Deputy State Librarian at the California State Library. And I feel like to be on theme and to have a segue here. I am a product of the CSU system, so that's where I got my library degree.

And also this room is decorated with copies of posters that are in the State Library's collection. So it's nice to be home.

All right, so the California State Library empowers the people of the nation's most diverse and populous state by providing credible information services to all Californians, especially those in state government and the legislature, libraries, academia, and persons with disabilities.

We lead and establish partnerships with California libraries through funding, program development and support, and preserve and provide access to California's unique history to enrich the lives of current and future generations.

I'm not going to quote the entire code section, but education code section 19300 definitely points out that it's in the interest of the people and of the state that there be a general diffusion of knowledge and intelligence through the establishment and operation of public libraries.

So to talk specifically about the agenda item here today, as part of our ongoing efforts to maintain a sustainable and effective approach to achieving our mission, we made difficult decisions to ensure that negative impact to our operational needs and strategic goals is as limited as possible.

Decisions were made to allow us to focus remaining resources where they would be most needed, ensuring that we can continue making meaningful strides toward our mission without significantly compromising the quality or effectiveness of our operations. By making these reductions, we can stay aligned with our overall strategy while still meeting the needs of our core operations.

None of the cuts are insignificant to us or to our users. To our partners in programming. Every dollar, every staff position, every program makes a meaningful contribution to state employees and California's needs for information, education and economic and cultural opportunities. The California State Library has always run an incredibly lean operation.

Our staff is really tired of me saying we run things on chewing gum and baling wire and we do amazing things. I read that in a book once.

So while we're providing as many resources as possible to enable state employees to do their jobs, to provide critical research and information supply resources and technical consultation and local assistance Programs for California's 1,127 local public libraries and at the same time safeguard the cultural heritage of all Californians for all Californians.