Assembly Budget Subcommittee No. 3 on Education Finance

Good morning, everybody. Welcome to the Assembly Budget Subcommitte No. 3 on education finance. I'm Chair, Assemblymember David Alvarez, and I welcome you all to today's hearing. Today's hearing is on the California State University system. We will hear about enrollment trends in today's agenda.

We will hear about issues related to the campuses, core operations, obviously, federal funds and actions, that are impacting our campuses, our annual title nine update, and then also we will hear about basic needs. And a recurring theme this year, that we've asked all of our segments to present on, which is a common course numbering. So that is the agenda for today. I wanna thank you all for being here. We will take public comment at the end of today's agenda.

So I will be asking for issue one panel to please make their way up forward, please, so we can hear an update on enrollment. I think those who have been following this issue know that we had a hearing at this committee in December where we started to discuss this issue in more detail. I wanna thank the system for providing some responses to some of the questions that were raised by the committee at that time. There has been a follow-up to that.

Also, as the budget act of twenty of last year requested turnaround plans, from, campuses that are seeing significant decline of enrollment in students in the CSU system.

Those were submitted at the end of last month. I have started to look through those, but we likely may have a future conversation on that just because we haven't had time to review that in thorough with the thoroughness that it requires. But nonetheless, I think we can have a conversation today about, enrollment, which is really critical to serving Californians. So we have, Department of Finance, the Legislative Analyst's Office, and the CSU Chancellor's Office here. I think we're kicking it off with the Department of Finance.

Good morning, Chair Alvarez, Assemblymember Fong. Alex and I have Velasquez with the Department of Finance. As it relates to the California State University's enrollment for the FTE, the twenty twenty six, twenty seven governor's budget does not propose any changes to the enrollment targets adopted as part of the 2025 budget act, nor does the governor's budget propose any twenty twenty seven, twenty academic year enrollment targets for the university. This concludes my remarks, and I'm happy to take any questions at the appropriate time. Thank you.

Thank you. We'll hear from the LAO.

Good morning, mister chair and

Assembly member Fong. Natalie Gonzalez with the Legislative Analyst's Office. As the subcommittee has discussed in previous hearings this year, the state's overall budget condition is tight. One key issue the legislature faces within the broader fiscal context is whether to prioritize funding for enrollment growth at the higher education segments. If the legislature chooses to prioritize funding for enrollment growth at CSU in 2627, we have three related recommendations.

First, we recommend that

the

legislature adopt a budget year resident undergraduate enrollment target for CSU that is somewhat lower than the target proposed in the governor's budget. Whereas the governor's budget target proposes a 2.1% growth in resident undergraduate enrollment, CSU believes it will fall short of that target in 2627. Instead, the legislature could set a lower target that is more in line with CSU's projections. For example, it could set a target of 1% enrollment growth.

One reason CSU might have some difficulty reaching the current target is due to some soft demographic pressures in 2627.

For example, the administration is projecting that the number of high school graduates at California public high schools is expected to decline in spring twenty twenty six, which could impact CSU's enrollment for fall twenty twenty six. Second, similar to our recommendation for UC and the colleges, we recommend funding enrollment growth at CSU in 2627 apart from and on top of any base increase. One key difference for CSU though is that it in its enrollment remains below its funded level for resident undergraduate enrollment.

Lastly, looking ahead to 2728, we recommend holding CSU's enrollment target flat that year. Given the state is projected to have a large deficit in 2728, Having CSU enroll additional students with the chance that they would not receive additional funding could have adverse programmatic impacts, including less course offerings, larger class sizes, and less academic support services for students.

Thank you, and happy to take any questions at the appropriate time.

Thank you. Here from the Chancellor's Office.

Hello. Mark Martin representing the California State University. Mister chair, just wanna make a quick note. This is my first appearance in the subcommittee representing the CSU after working here for the last twelve years. I was really proud and honored to work with you all and your predecessors on bringing more accessible, affordable higher education to California.

And I'm really excited now to represent CSU. CSU at this pivotal moment for CSU and for higher education in general. CSU is in transition. We are facing significant fiscal challenges, enrollment challenges, federal challenges, and we are on the move making major changes in enrollment strategies, fiscal strategies, HR, academic affairs, student affairs. And I think the directions that CSU is heading are very much in line with legislative values and priorities.

And so I'm hoping we can work together in partnership to serve the state. On to the details. Very happy to talk about enrollment. At its core, CSU's mission is access. So I'm gonna briefly highlight where we are on enrollment, including the challenges we are addressing, the reallocation plan that we are implementing, the turnaround plans that were submitted last month, and other major steps we are taking to ensure we continue to serve Californians effectively.

Overall, enrollment is strong. After, a significant decline, CSU has experienced three consecutive years of strong enrollment growth and expects to reach its highest FTS level at the end of this academic year. We have exceeded enrollment expectations in the budget act each of the last three years and remain committed to meeting the state's, compact goals with compact funding. A key driver of CSU enrollment is our partnership with the California Community Colleges. I wanna point out on slide two of the presentation I gave you.

Each year, 40 to 50% of our new undergraduates come from a community college. When community college enrollment declined during COVID, c CSU experienced a decline, a few within a year or two. As community college enrollment has rebounded, we are now seeing that reflected in increased transfer enrollment, including growth in transfer applications for fall twenty six. That said, enrollment trends are uneven as this committee is very aware of.

While most universities are growing, a subset primarily in Northern California to continue to face structural declines, driven in part by regional demographic shifts and reduced community college pipelines.

This imbalance creates real impacts. Some campuses are seeing strong demand that exceeds capacity, while others are focused on rebuilding enrollment and strengthening their resource base. To address this issue, CSU is taking a balanced and responsible approach. We have implemented a multi year reallocation plan that shifts capacity and funding to campuses with the greatest demand while maintaining stability at campuses working to recover. In total, this effort will realign approximately 10,000 FTAs and 89,000,000 in ongoing funding.

The chart in your agenda on page 10 shows this plan. In addition, we have provided 40,000,000 in one time funding to high enrollment campuses over the last two years. At the same time, seven campuses with the most significant declines have developed targeted turnaround plans. These plans were submitted to the legislature last month and are part of a larger effort, the fiscal health monitoring program, and I'll talk more about that in the next item.

All campuses, not just the low enrollment campuses, developed fiscal action plans that are now available on our website.

These were developed, over the last year and involved continuing discussion between the chancellor's office and campuses. For the seven campuses, each campus has unique challenges and individualized plans to recover enrollment, but there are consistent strategies. There's efforts to reengage, stopped out, and adult learners. There's an effort to expand access through partnerships, guaranteed admissions, and improved financial aid programs and faster admissions and financial aid notices to students. And there's efforts to strengthen retention and student success including proactive advising and increased basic needs support.

For example, Dominguez Hills has successfully reenrolled hundreds of students through targeted outreach to students who left the campus. Chico State is expanding degree programs at Shasta, Yuba, and Siskiyous Community Colleges to reach students where they are. East Bay is providing free CSU courses to area high school students. All of these campuses have projected enrollments going forward with most expecting to grow and get to or move closer to their internal enrollment targets over the next three years.

Finally, CSU is advancing broader system wide strategies to meet changing student needs.

In May, the board of trustees will discuss a new strategic enrollment management plan, which will further address reallocation issues and the imbalances across the system and also provide a system wide framework and policy in round enrollment that acknowledges our new reality. K 12 enrollment is expected to drop by 600,000 in the next ten years in this state.

While at the same time, we know we have 19,000,000 California adults without a bachelor's degree, and a lot of surveys show that the a lot of those Californians do want an educational opportunity. So we will focus on expanded pathways for working adults, military connected learners, and those with some college but no degree. This means flexible programs, collaborative degree models across campuses and regions, and using technology to admit students faster, offer more courses in different formats, and monitor student progress to identify academic academic problems sooner.

The board is considering the spring new bachelor's degree models. A bachelor's of education that should help more students get a bachelor's degree and a teaching certificate in four years, bachelor's in applied studies and professional studies that are more flexible and could be utilized for returning students. The bachelor's in applied sciences could allow students to earn, or a path to a 90 unit bachelor's degree instead of the more common 120 units. In short, CSU is both growing and adopting.

We are serving more students, addressing regional challenges directly, and modernizing how and where we deliver higher education.

We look forward to continue to work with you in partnership to better serve the state. Thank you, and I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you very much to all three of you. Why don't we start with the legislative analyst office first for my questions? I know I've mentioned this in the hearing the very first hearing we had, and, something I wanna bring up again. And that's the issue of the budget allocating for growth versus base that you've raised in your analysis before, and it's also it's also cited in our in our reports today. And I'm trying to get a better understanding of what that would look like.

You mentioned that historically that's been the practice of the legislature to do so. And and I'm now looking on page 11 of the public agenda where the LAO recommendations are cited. The second point that's that's cited here is providing enrollment growth funding separately from base increases. I'd like to hear more about what that would mean, historically, what that's meant, and how that would work.

Yeah. Happy to provide some context on that. So as of now, with c currently in the governor's budget, CSU would get a 7% base increase and they would have discretion in how to spend that funding.

What has been done in the past is sometimes with the base increase, there's a base increase that CSU can use for spending such as salaries, financial aid, other things, but then there is a portion of funding that is given specifically for enrollment that is separate from that base increase that would go to other spending priorities. And the way that that amount is calculated is it's using the state's share of the marginal cost rate for students.

So in 2627, that marginal cost rate is around $11,000. So using the the way that would be calculated is taking that $11,000 or so and multiplying it by the enrollment growth target, and that would be, the amount of funding that would be set aside, for enrollment specifically.

And, historically, we've allocated the marginal costs for growth, but also there's been base increases in addition to that.

Correct.

Have there been trends in terms of what that base increase has been? I know that the the the compact era is maybe a little bit different, but prior to that?

Prior to

Yeah. We have one of your colleagues coming up who may be able to provide some assistance on that. And I don't know if, you know, you know, for for K12 and community college, COLA is often referenced. There is no equivalent per se, but maybe there's been some similarities.

Jennifer Pacella, legislative analyst office. So, yes, we keep track of it over time so we can go back a few decades and see what the state has done. When the state does provide a COLA, 5% is roughly what it does. Now that because of the ebbs and flows of the state budget, the recessions and the recoveries, it's very volatile. So there's years where there's been reductions that are double digit reductions and years where there's double digit increases.

Over the past ten years, if we just look at the average annual rate of increase, recognizing COVID, there was a reduction. Other years, there were more than five percent increases, but the average annual rate has been 4.2%. So even though it's different from the k 14 statutory cola, when you compare the historical averages, they're not too different. K.

That's very helpful. Thank you. And so what would that mean, for this year if we use let's just say the average and, I know it's tough. You probably haven't calculated this, but in average cola or an average base increase of 1% less than the amount that's being provided, what would that mean? And then if we did it based on the marginal cost you cited, the the anticipated growth is only roughly 1% of students.

And so what would that mean in terms of funding if we were to approach it that way?

One option which we, I know we also may discuss an issue too, but is we providing a base increase for CSU that is closer aligned to inflation using the state and local price deflator. So as of now, that is 3.78%. So Okay. Closer to a 4%. So that would reduce the base increase by about half.

And then adding the funding on top for enrollment, We haven't done the exact calculation, but we are working on some calculations that look at the different options that we're happy to send over.

Okay. Yeah.

That'd be

That would be helpful.

Thank you.

Also think about it just just like, a 4% cola and 1% growth. It's still 5% increase going to CSU. It's just earmarked a portion for enrollment growth.

Right.

It's just a different way of saying what Natalie's saying.

Right. Also, if

I may add, sure, Alex Anaya Velasquez with the Department of Finance while the LAO just mentioned it would be a 5%, that's almost equivalent to the 5% that's being proposed this governor's budget. The difference of the 2% is the compact from last year, so that's why you

I was about to ask that.

Two percent. Yeah. So you would basically be providing the same amount of percentage Yeah. Or potentially reducing last year's investment even further.

Yeah.

Because now it's just a 40% or 60% versus a 100% of year four funding.

Yeah. I was gonna I was gonna ask that given the actions last year, how does a 2% above the 5%, if we were gonna take that approach, where does that leave things overall? May and maybe this is something to come back with over the last couple of years. What have we cumulatively done or not done related to what could be considered a base growth and an enrollment growth, and making a comparison would be helpful for for us. Appreciate that.

Mister chair, could I just I just know that this period of the compact funding, particularly for the first three years as we got the 5% increases, there was a cut in year three, a one time cut that was restored.

Right.

But that kind of out year planning allows us to grow enrollment, to hire more people, to address issues. With this disruption in the current year, we we kind of now find ourselves in deficits. I mean, we had deficits before, but I just would encourage, kind of out year discussions. We we do, it it's very helpful to have kind of a signal as to where we're going, And these 5% increases have really allowed increased enrollment, increased employee compensation, allowed campuses to to plan ahead. Sure.

And when we get these disruptions, it's very difficult. But we're thankful for the current proposal and think this will allow us to kind of get back on track and and continue growing and and making changes.

Yeah. I I I would agree with that. With with the one thing to know, which is that, we cannot predict everything in the future. And what we kind of are anticipating over the next couple of years are not such great years. And so if that growth did occur, then how do we not cause a disruption to the system when the funding is not there in the out years given the structural deficit to the budget?

And, and how do we respond to that responsively to to not cause students any harm. And I think that's that's sort of transitions to sort of the the conversation on enrollment where I think, at least historically, short term, that type of adapting to those realities has not really occurred in the system.

And now we're talking about potentially making more difficult choices because over the course of multiple years, enrollment at several campuses, the seven in specific, has been on a very, very clear decline, not even marginal, but, you know, double digit plus. And and I'm thankful that that we're now we're seeing with the plans a lot more data as to how to address that, but that's that's a situation I think we don't wanna be in for the whole system in the next couple of years.

So I do wanna talk about the enrollment issue.

Like I said earlier, at the at the onset, we we likely, may have to have a a separate conversation given the level of detail. I will acknowledge, as I've pulled up, here on on my own device, the 130 page, document that was submitted to the legislature per per the budget act, which I think provides a a lot of transparency in terms of what's happening at these campuses, which I think is very helpful for us. And I again, I think really merits a a further conversation.

I don't wanna not spend the time I think we should. So I'll ask them probably general questions, and then, again, we'll find some some time to talk a little more.

I guess the first the first question is maybe start from our way from the end, work our way backwards. Out of the seven turnaround plans from the seven campuses in double digit percent, declining enrollment, it it appears that all but two of them believe that by the year, I believe it's 2031, attendance sorry. Enrollment will be meeting the targeted enrollment that the system has identified. Let me ask this question first. Who who determines the targeted FTES at the CSU in the out years?

Is that done at the at the board of trustees levels, the chancellor's office, the the campus themselves? How how does this happen?

Yeah. I appreciate that question. These these are internal enrollment targets by campus determined in conversation between the chancellor's office and the campuses over the years. And so that conversation is sort of always happening. And yeah.

So it's Okay. It's sort of

So just because I'm on this page, no. I don't even know what where this discussion is gonna lead and if it's gonna be illustrative or not. But, like, Chico has and it's I think it's the same with all of them, so it doesn't really matter. The twenty twenty five, twenty six enrollment target continues to be the enrollment target throughout the five year period. And I again, I think that was the same with all the others.

Let me see if I can scroll real quickly to a to a different one. But and so I'm just wondering why so is that an annual conversation in terms of targets? How when do these decisions get made on that?

Yeah. And and I will note that these turnaround plans, the campuses were did develop these. They were asked to be fairly conservative in terms of how much state funding would be projected in the out years, and they were asked to be realistic in terms of how much enrollment they can regain. And and so and these these targets are based on funding.

I mean, I think what I would say is that going forward, we you know, enrollment growth funding, and this has been the case the last few years too, has gone only to the campuses that are sort of over target or or showing sustained demand.

And so that is, you know, these are determined each year, but but there is sort of a longer term discussion always going on as well as terms of where they're going.

Okay. So so the the '26, 27 through twenty nine thirty enrollment targets, it it looks like everybody just used their their twenty five twenty six number just for simplicity's sake.

Yeah. I think the intent is to get back to these you know, these are all campuses that are obviously under their targets and so

Yeah. So so now that we've established that to to the question that Aye, excuse me, led with, which was, I think all but two this is more of a summary and ask you to provide more context to this. By the year 2930, believe with these plans that they will hit their resident targeted enrollment.

Yeah. They'll they'll be very if not hit, very close. Obviously, one of the things I will note about these plans is that they will evolve too. There will be kind of continual discussions and but, yes, that that is the intent here is to get these campuses back. And I think several of them, Chico is a notable one, that are already growing.

Most of them are growing this year, and they and they have significant plans to continue that growth over the next few years.

Yeah. And the two that won't are Sonoma and San Francisco. That's the correct summary version. Again, I think we'll have a follow-up because I would like to get into some of the weeds on some of this. For example, I'm looking now at Humboldt, which somehow is going to go from 5,100 to 7,600, a growth of 2,500 students in a matter of five years.

That that sounds a little bit ambitious, which is good, but not sure it's realistically aligned. So, again, probably worth further conversation. I wanna ask you though about the you mentioned there's a board meeting in May where there will be a conversation on enrollment, and there were some things I really I think you know this. Was really excited to hear about a 90 unit degree potential, conversation with applied, science degrees and other degrees, looking at doing things a little bit differently.

You talked about, service military service men and women, which I know a lot of private institutions target significantly and our publics don't as much.

So that's those all seem to be great strategies, the use of technology. What do you anticipate the conversation in May to be about given that the system a couple of years ago had a and had an enrollment reallocation plan that, has shifted and has not been, really maybe it's been a guiding document, but it hasn't really been applied in terms of, the the declining enrollment and the associated funding by campus that was gonna be shifted. That has changed over over time.

What what is the May board discussion gonna be about?

Well, I would I would, I guess, push back a little. I mean, we have this reallocation plan that's in current year, second of three years. The plan is to continue that at 26-27. That has shifted will shift $90,000,000, 10,000 FTE. So I I it has been enacted.

The campuses that are sending money away have felt that dramatically. I mean, it's been a significant impact on those campuses. So and but we we acknowledge that there is will continue to be imbalance here. And I I I think the discussion around the system wide enrollment plan is the right one to have at this time. We are for for the last, you know, I think several decades, CSU most most universities were growing.

They obviously were different sizes, and some some of them had more growth in some years and and different. But we are now in a in a situation, and frankly, the community colleges are somewhat in the same situation Where we definitely have very different circumstances for different, universities.

And so there will be, I I can't tell you exactly how this plan will play out, but that is a big part of it as we need to to get a handle on the system wide enrollment and how to, work as a system and make sure our resources are allocated in the right places.

But we need, we obviously need to support more growth at the high demand campuses, but we also need to to to help the campuses that have had these declines recover and serve more students, serve students in different ways. A lot of those programs, whether they're, an a, BA program at a community college or out in the community or, working to attract more students, that's expensive.

I mean, that that takes resources. And so we, as a system, I think the the idea for the strategic enrollment plan is to evolve the system to serve more students in different ways, but also to to kind of help balance the needs of the some of the campuses and universities that are have had significant challenges with the needs of the of the campuses that are seeing really significant demand.

Yeah. Well, I'm definitely looking forward to that. I I just wanna make sure there's clarity though. The enrollment reallocation plan that I was referring to did talk about, you know, I I think it was a 10% campuses with not meeting their targets by 10%. We're gonna see, I I thought, 5% reduction.

And in some years, that reduction has not occurred, and some years, the reduction has been less. And so and I don't know that the board ever saw that or but I I remember coming into this role actually being very excited about that conversation because it meant that we were rightsizing, that we were ensuring that where there's opportunities to to educate more Californians, we would do that.

And maybe reality hit and it was, you know, not thought out as as well as it should have been when it was presented, but that has not, taken shape. What has, I will acknowledge, occurred is 20,000,000 in 24-25 reallocation to, about 10 campuses with growth. Actually, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven campuses with growth.

In '25, '26, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine campuses with growth. Total of 40,000,000 as you stated in the testimony. You just mentioned, though, something that I may have missed and not caught on. You said total of 90,000,000. Is that prior years, or you're talking about 2627?

Yeah. There's two things going on. And I I guess I will just wanna note that we we developed this three year plan, and you're right. It has changed a little. One thing that changes, we didn't get any new ongoing general fund in the current year.

And so I think there was some recognition of that. So there are two things happening. There is not about 90,000,000 or 89,000,000 in ongoing funding that is moving from some universities to others. There is also a 40,000,000 in one time funding that has gone to the high demand campuses. So there's two pieces to this reallocation plan.

And, again, I think we're really trying to support the high demand campuses and allow them to grow, but also we need to be cognizant of the the challenge campuses and the resources they need to recover. And so this has has evolved Okay. Over over time, but it is the end result is 90,000,000 in ongoing funding and 40,000,000 in one time funding.

That's right. So 40,000,000 one time, 89 in ongoing, with '26, '27 still to be determined.

Well, there there is a plan the 26-27 targets and this this plan that you see is in place and and has been communicated to universities that this will be happening.

You might find the figure at the bottom of page 10. It might help just orient the conversation where CSU is discussing the savings each year.

And the 89,000,000 is the three year total for 26-27, if I'm reading this correctly. It's a shift of 25 some million.

Right.

Right. That and so thank you. That's below the 40,000,000, the $1.10 that occurred. That's at the top of that page. And then the ongoing would be inclusive of a still to be approved budget for 26-27 by the trustees.

K.

Yeah. And I would just know that you can look at this chart and see that some of these campuses that were, you know, losing funding are not in 26-27. And and that's, I think, an indication that that efforts are working. Some of these campuses are growing and they're, you know, much closer to their target than they were.

Yeah. Okay. Oh, just the the final question. Will the May discussion of the board of trustees occur before the adoption of the, the, budget by campus? Or is that at the same meeting?

Well, the the the the way our budgeting works is I mean, the these these targets have already been sent out to campuses in '26 for 26-27.

For admission purposes.

Yeah. There is a final memo that goes out in July after the budget is after we know exactly how much funding there is that distributes funding for enrollment, for facilities, for insurance costs, etcetera. And so that is kind of the final word, I think, on on things. But but this, these enrollment targets have been, already disseminated at universities and are the plan for 26-27.

Okay. Great.

Thank you. Those are my questions. We have mister Fong.

Thank you so much, mister chair, and thank you to all the panelists for the updates here on enrollment. I wanted to uplift a possible opportunity as well. The you know, the community colleges have done tremendous work around dual enrollment programs, the K12. For the CSU system, is the CSU system engaging in these opportunities between k 12 and CSUs and what those opportunities look like, and is it gonna be like a system wide model?

Yeah. I really appreciate the question. There are several things we're doing both at the K12 level and at the community college level. There are several campuses that are offering courses to high school students either at high schools or on campus with the idea, obviously, that we're trying to offer free courses, get students some college credit, and then the intent obviously is that they would enroll at the the university.

So that's happening at East Bay and Sonoma in particular, but I think, several other campuses as well.

In addition, we do have a, dual admissions program with community colleges. It's called the transfer success pathway. It's launched in the last few years, and that does allow students to be essentially guaranteed admission to a CSU as they start their community college career.

And we're seeing a lot of encouraging signs here, and the the basic concept is that we wanna make sure the community college student has much more interaction and connection with the CSU from the very beginning of their start at the community college, through, technology, through advising, through more clear pathways. And in particular, we're seeing a lot of transfer around business and engineering, which are obviously two very significant state workforce needs.

And this program is really working for those kinds of students. They can see much more clearly what what they need to do at the community college and then where what they'll need to do at the CSU. And so we're expanding that program throughout the state, and very excited about it.

And and thank you for that context. So in terms of that, follow-up, would it be the whether it be like a system wide MOU or is it just more, a piece of approach for campuses?

It is. Yeah. It is both system wide and campus by campus. So I I think there's kind of both in play. The chancellor's office is playing a large role in in developing this program and then it's, the universities are connecting with their community colleges, for these kinds of things.

We have, 390 partnerships with community colleges and high schools, across the state, that are around these kinds of programs, whether that's, dual admissions or bachelor's degree programs at community colleges, that kind of thing. So I I think partnership is at the heart of what we're doing and a lot of strategies around enrollment growth.

Thank you so much for the context. And now just to follow-up on a couple of the questions that the chair had asked as well. In terms of some of the declining enrollment campuses such as Sonoma, San Francisco, in terms of the turnaround plans for the next few years, how do we continue to see opportunities to boost enrollment at at the declining enrollment campuses?

Yeah. And I'll just know what I think, the most of the campuses are in Northern California. And if you look at the community college enrollment in those areas, San Francisco Community College, Santa Rosa Junior College, Peralta Community College, those are the college systems that are all have not recovered, and we have the CSUs there too. So, again, sort of emphasizes this really strong connection between community college and CSU. And so but I think sort of three major strategies for enrollment growth at all of these campuses.

One is these kinds of partnerships with high schools and community colleges, guaranteed admissions. We haven't really talked about that yet, but that is was was begun a few years ago is now the law, thanks to Senator Cabaldon's bill last year. So students who are qualified for CSU are getting letters saying you are admitted. Congratulations. So we're being very proactive, and I think that's, showing some signs of of success.

I think there's a lot of efforts on campus, to bring more students in, more summer programs for students who are coming in to get ahead and take a unit, several units. Lots of retention strategies to make sure we keep students once they're in, early advising, intrusive advising, which is, a lot of campuses now have the technology to be able to tell when students are in trouble in a class and and, allow them access to tutoring and and advising and that kind of thing.

So we believe retention is a big part of enrollment as well. We do have a goal in our strategic plan to continue to increase graduation rates that will obviously increase FTE. So I think there are kind of every single university has multiple strategies going forward to increase enrollment, serve more Californians, serve more adults.

I appreciate that context in terms of retention and reaching out to folks who have maybe disconnected from the university as well. I think to be proactive and to reach out is critical. We're gonna actually gonna get one of those steps of bills this afternoon as well from one of my colleagues, Beverly, how we can continue to promote and incentivize and to really bring back our students to the CSU system. So I appreciate all the context and updates here, and thank you so much, mister chair.

Thank you. Doctor Patel.

Hi. Thank you for your presentation and your comments today. I was taking a look at the LAO's input as well. Questions around your turnaround plans, specifically. Some of the things we can control for, but many of the things we can't.

Like, we can build degree programs that are gonna keep up with jobs of the future that are maybe AI protective kind of career pathways. We can teach children around critical thinking or students, I should say, around critical thinking and problem solving, whether the human aspect of it is gonna carry them through. But there are some things we just can't control for, like declining population, declining birth rates, higher cost of living in certain areas. So in your turnaround plan, how do we how do we address that?

We can't make students appear where they don't exist.

Yeah. I think and there are a a couple campuses that are will do everything they can to grow enrollment, but they are engaged in right sizing their campus in in specific ways. San Francisco has, several thousand fewer enrollments than they did of, you know, sort of pre COVID. And the the Bay Area birth rate, the K12 enrollment, the community college enrollment are all challenges that, have been difficult. So San Francisco State has had through attrition and, you know, early retirement programs downsized.

They've also added though, enrollments or, I mean, faculty in nursing, computer science, engineering. So I I do think we feel like we can offer more attractive programs that fit state workforce needs, and really find adult learners that we haven't necessarily always found in the past. So I do think that some of these campuses are gonna be challenged to ever get back to sort of where they were ten years ago or something like that.

But I think they they have plans to to grow and to serve different students in different ways.

Yeah. So I think what we're looking at is is not only rightsizing, but shifting program availability, degree programs to make sure we're keeping up with projected workforce needs in the area. Those changes aren't act always easy because that means shifting which faculty are teaching on a certain campus versus in a different system. So I just wanna acknowledge that.

I also wanna acknowledge that it takes a certain amount of operating budget to just keep a campus open that is independent of the number of students that are on campus.

So how are you addressing those needs as we look at declining enrollment at certain campuses?

Yeah. I really appreciate that question because because that is, I think, obviously, we're focused here on enrollment and enrollment funding, but that is not, the only driver of campus, funding. We we distribute funding to campuses based on facilities, utility costs, which are different by region, inch you know, pre insurance premiums. A big one is our institutional aid. The State University grant program is more than $800,000,000.

That is distributed to campuses based on student need per campus. So there's I think a lot of things that go into running a campus that we will always be, grappling with. And and enrollment is one, but it is certainly not the only thing. We wanna make sure we are serving every single region of the state in an equitable way, I think, some of that is in your agenda is gonna be different by campus.

Smaller campuses do not enjoy the economies of scale of larger camp campuses, and that's sort of always gonna be the case.

So we do are are always trying to balance, the needs of each university, each region to make sure that we are really truly meeting our mission to serve the entire state.

Yeah. Thank you for that. And another follow-up question. As we look at those CSUs that do have declining enrollment, we look at some perhaps that are bringing in students that are not from California.

And so looking at nonresident students that are coming in, has there been any plans around, say, San Francisco State trying to do some recruitment outside of state, not just for the the wonderful opportunity of of being able to study in San Francisco, which is a flagship city within the state of California, but also as a way of increasing enrollment, invigorating a campus once again.

Yeah. And I, you know, I think 95 of our students are Californians, and I think we're very proud of that and will continue to always be California first. But, yes, I do think there are several campuses that are looking in that direction. San Francisco in particular, we're aware that the through the GI Bill, veterans receive a much higher housing allowance in the Bay Area than they do anywhere else in the country.

And that campus is looking at guaranteed admissions for veterans doing a lot more military outreach to try and bring students in through that because we do know that, obviously, housing is expensive in in San Francisco, but the, the the GI bill does try and address that.

So, yeah, there I think there are plans throughout that, throughout campuses, to try and increase slightly, non resident enrollment.

Thank you.

Those are my questions.

Thank you. That, excuse me, reminds me when we had our teacher pipeline conversation, we had a professor from the school of education at San Francisco State, who stated, and I wanna just acknowledge that, that the demand for her program was pretty substantial, but funding was not available to fund those slots.

And so, obviously, it became caught my attention given enrollment issues at San Francisco State that clearly when you've got a program that is in high demand and working, you know, campuses should be adapting and responsive, and I wanted to just acknowledge that testimony from that individual.

I, I, I would note that San Francisco State admits almost all of the teaching candidates that it that apply and they're are qualified. They have I do believe they have plans to increase special education in the next few years. But I do think that campus in particular is doing a very, you know, very looking at this very strategically in terms of where they need to grow, where they need to, may have lesser demand. Yeah.

But it is a difficult, issue, as you might imagine on every campus to try and shift resources to different programs, but but they are doing that.

Right. Okay. Well, I think this conversation will continue, but doctor Patel, I think, has one more.

Yeah. I'm sorry. I had a lingering thought around dual enrollment and, bringing college opportunities to our students. And as we look at mounting pressures of our young people and their mental health, is there any concern around escalating or increasing college courses for 14, 15, 16 year olds when they're just trying to balance their daily lives, maybe participating in sports or fine arts at their school sites. Are are there any concerns around that?

It's a very good question. I, I, I think, I, I believe that the programs that we do offer for high school students are free to the students or or very minimal administrative fee. And I think they're intended to kind of give a flavor of college, but I, I, I do excuse me. I do hear you on that. I have two kids in college right now, and and it it was very stressful in high school trying to figure out where to go, what to do.

So I, I'm not sure I have a very specific answer for you, but I do think we are trying to provide, some act some, information and and experience with college at an at an earlier age so that when they do come to to campus, they are a little more comfortable with where they are and their surroundings. They know the campus layout and that kind of thing.

Yeah. I, I mean, absolutely. I hear you. But we do know that access is not even.

Yeah.

Transportation is not guaranteed. And we also know that college faculty aren't necessarily trained in the same way to meet the needs of young people as high school educators are. And so there's just a little bit of I'm just it's just a lingering question out there. It's not a criticism. I'm still very supportive of dual enrollment opportunities.

Just wanna make sure we're not increasing downward pressure onto our high school students and not allowing them to fully experience high school life as well.

I hear that.

Yep.

Thank you. Thank you to the panel. We'll hold the issue open. We'll hear back from the LAO on those questions, and like I said, likely another hearing on the enrollment issue. Thank you to all three of you.

We will move on to issue number two. I think you may have the same panel for this, so we'll kick it off with the Department of Finance.

Once again, for the record, Alex and I have Velasquez with the Department of Finance. As it relates to CSU's corporations for the governor's budget in 2026, the governor's budget provides ongoing general fund support equal to a 5% increase for CSU in twenty twenty six, twenty seven. This represents the final year of the multiyear compact and the fifth year. For CSU specifically, this represents $264,800,000 ongoing general fund.

In addition, the governor's budget maintains ongoing general fund amounts adopted in the 2025 budget act that partially cover the fourth year compact representing 100 and $900,000 ongoing general fund.

Additionally, for the fourth year compact deferral, the one time consistent with the 2025 Budget Act, the government's budget maintains the deferral of the one time fourth year compact from twenty twenty five-twenty six to twenty twenty seven, twenty eight. Lastly, the three percent one time base payback. The governor's budget does propose to delay the 3% bay base payback in additional fiscal year from twenty twenty six, twenty seven to twenty twenty seven, twenty eight.

This concludes my remarks, and I'm happy to take any questions at the appropriate time. Thank you.

Thank you. LAO, please.

Thank you. Natalie Gonzales with the Legislative Analyst Office. We have four recommendations regarding the proposed base increase for CSU and a final recommendation relating to compacts. First, rather than providing CSU with a 7% base increase under the governor's budget, the legislature could consider providing a smaller base increase to CSU that is more aligned with inflation. Alternatively, the legislature could decide to provide a no base increase, and this option does the most to help the state manage the projected out year deficit.

Even without a base increase, CSU's core funding would still increase by about 4.2% largely due to increases in tuition revenue. As a result, CSU would still have some funding to address some of its spending priorities. This increase is also aligned with CSU's average base increases over the past ten years. These alternatives are intended to help the state contain its ongoing spending given it is projected to face large deficits in the out years.

Second, we recommend the legislature adopt provisional budget language earmarking a share of any approved base increase for CSU for capital renewal.

Under the governor's proposal, CSU has total discretion in how to use its proposed base increase. CSU is carrying an estimated capital renewal backlog of 8,600,000,000.0. If funding is not addressed to is is not directed to address this backlog, more projects will be delayed and costs will increase as building components degrade further. Therefore, targeting some funds towards facilities will ensure that CSU undertakes some of its capital renewal projects to help which would help prevent more costly repairs in the future.

Third, we recommend retiring the payment deferral as soon as one time funding becomes available.

As noted in 2526, the state deferred an 144,000,000 payment to CSU until 2627. Under the governor's budget, this payment is deferred again to 2728. We recommend retiring the deferral to return CSU to its regular schedule of payments, eliminate the associated state debt obligation, as well as reduce out year budgetary pressures. Fourth, we recommend removing the out year funding commitments to CSU. The governor proposes providing c CSU with 252,000,000 one time in 2728 and 151,000,000 ongoing funding in 2829.

Even though the state is projecting budget deficits in those years and there is no specific funding plan in place in how the state will cover those out year commitments. Rather than making those commitments in advance given that they might not be able to be honored due to the projected budget deficit, the legislature instead could determine in those years how much ongoing support it can afford to provide to CSU in light of fiscal conditions and competing budget priorities.

Finally, we recommend the legislature avoid getting entangled with new compacts moving forward. Though compacts are intended to provide CSU with predictable funding levels, in practice, CSU's funding levels are determined by actual budget conditions. As a result, the most recent compact has contributed to complex budget actions that have lacked transparency and accountability.

Instead of endorsing compacts, we recommend the legislature make its funding decisions for CSU annually based on the best information available at the time. Thank you, and happy to take any questions at the appropriate time.

Thank you. CSU.

Mark Martin for the CSU again. I will, provide a a brief overview of CSU's current fiscal condition, key challenges, actions underway to address these challenges, including updates on our system wide fiscal health monitoring and shared services initiative process, as well as the governor's budget proposal and the proposed use of our funds. CSU is heavily dependent on state funding. Nearly 60% of our core operating budget comes from the state. 76% of CSU spending is employee compensation, and 10% is financial aid.

So I just want to note that when we have tight budgets or have to make reductions, it's really difficult to do that without affecting employees or students. State funds and tuition per student, I, I do have a slide in there, have fluctuated over the decades, but I did wanna note that spending per student has remained essentially flat for the last twenty to twenty five years.

This is despite dramatic expansion of student services that we now provide, including basic needs and mental health, high cost stem and health care programs that we're trying to expand, to address the state workforce needs. So we are doing more with the same is how I would put it. After three years of compact funding, last year, we received this reduction to our ongoing base budget at precisely the same time enrollment was growing and costs were rising.

Simultaneously, we fit we faced a significant cut in federal funding. So entering 2526, we faced about a $165,000,000 gap between expenses and revenue. We the chancellor's office took an 8% cut. The campuses took a 1.8% reduction. The state loan, we did take out.

We're very thankful for that. I appreciate all of this committee's work on saving us from what was a far worse fate last year at this time. We took that loan out and it's been earmarked for one time employee compensation increases. Campuses are doing a lot to reduce costs or, pursue cost saving measures, hiring freezes, elimination of vacant positions, voluntary separation programs. We're redesigning academic programs, including eliminating low demand offerings.

218 programs were suspended or discontinued this spring. At the same time, we added 40, that were mostly STEM and and other, high demand programs. Cal State Long Beach now manages HR for the chancellor's office and Cal State Monterey Bay. Sacramento State and Stanislaus State share a CFO. So those are kind of examples of things we're doing at a campus level.

System wide efforts are many and, I know a lot of this or some of this was discussed in the December hearing. The integration of Cal Maritime and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo is underway. That's eliminated seven high level administrative positions and will lead to savings. The San Francisco Bay Area network is allows East Bay, Sonoma State, and San Francisco State to all share a lot of kind of back office administrative services.

They're projecting a 9% savings in the current year with a goal of 15 to 30% savings on those activities in the out years.

The shared services initiative project, has allowed, the system to do a lot more as a system to save cost. CSU Buy is a new procurement system that was launched in January that allows every university to find the best deals or or collaborate with other universities on procurement. This we are consolidating cybersecurity efforts and benefits administration through that program. And then the fiscal health monitoring pro program, which was part of the turnaround plans. But this is a program that's, impacting all universities.

Every single university had to develop a fiscal action plan in conversation with the chancellor's office that addresses enrollment and fiscal issues, auxiliary issues, other pressures. And this will be is now in place everywhere and will will will continue, to be a program where we can monitor the fiscal health of every single university. All of those plans are on our website, by the way, not just the seven, turnaround plans. So we are facing serious fiscal issues, but we are taking them on at scale.

Two other quick challenges.

Federally, we did have about, 215 grants, totaling a 161,000,000 cut. These are not abstract research funds. They really directly impacted students. There are several teacher pipeline programs that were unfunded, student stipends for applied research. And I would be fired if I did not mention facilities.

We are really wanna stress this year that we have a significant facilities issue. The LAO mentioned $8,600,000 deferred maintenance backlog, including more than 2,000,000,000 in health and safety issues, electrical infrastructure, inadequate fire hydrant pressure, outdated lab fume hoods. We've not had a higher education bond in twenty years, mister chair. I know you're very aware of this, and we're hopeful to continue working with you on that issue.

We also have 31,000,000,000 in capital outlay plans, including several buildings that are STEM related, health care related, buildings where we have health care partners that wanna contribute some funding to increase, health care workforce.

So we are really hopeful this year that we can if there's one time funding available, maybe we could, use some of that for deferred maintenance. Moving to the 2627, fiscal year, our board budget plan seeks to address mandatory costs and then expand on priorities that I think the legislature will be in in agreement with. We face about 320,000,000 in mandatory cost increases, including health premiums, insurance, utilities, previously agreed upon compensation increases.

These are things that we have to fund, regardless of how much state funding we get. But beyond those baseline obligations, the board would seek to expand, several other priorities.

Enrollment growth, per the compact. We would use some of our operating funds to address facilities issues. We would generate 3 to $603,100 to $600,000,000 through our bond program to address deferred maintenance and some capital outlay. We we would working with our labor partners at the collective bargaining table to address their concerns around salary, steps progression, health benefits, other issues.

And then finally, the chancellor talked a lot in her appearance here February about CSU forward, our strategic plan, and the student success framework, which is sort of the, new iteration of the graduation initiative.

We have key goals around increasing community college transfer, ensuring more debt free graduation, expanding things like paid internships, and, developing industry partnerships. We are really shifting from a model that's, aimed at graduation as the goal to a model that is graduation, but also first job or grad school. We wanna make sure we are working with students from the moment they're on campus to, understand the options they have for, careers, and that is a a significant change.

So strong sustained state investment is what will allow CSU to fulfill its mission, serving California students and meeting the workforce needs of the state. We look forward to partnering with this committee to achieve those goals.

Thank you very much to all three of you. Let me start with the facilities issue and actually did not intend today's hearing to focus so much on that, and don't want to, make it appear we're having discussion on a policy bill.

We did there is a bond that the assembly has moved over to the Senate on the issue of facilities for the three segments, but because it hasn't been over twenty twenty years since the there hasn't been any approval of fundings from voters to help support the infrastructure at our segments. I think I heard 300 to 600,000,000 of the CSU's funds would be utilized, anticipated to be utilized in the budget year for this purpose. Is that correct?

Yeah. The well, we would we would use 25 to 50,000,000 for debt service on on bonding that would generate 300 to 600,000,000 for deferred maintenance and for capital.

The extent of the funding that's used for capital outlay and deferred maintenance and

No. We have existing bond funding that is supporting facilities. We do provide funding to campuses for new facilities to increase maintenance. So there is there are other expenditures going on.

But that's all non cash funded. It's all bond through smaller bonds that you do?

Well, I think there are there are some I mean, campuses are using some cash for facilities issues. But Okay.

Just to quickly add to you, I believe the CSU is authorized to use reflecting 15% of their general fund base to, issue debt service for bonds. And this is a bill that occurred in twenty thirteen, fourteen, but they used roughly up to 15% of, general fund.

Is it the administration's belief that that 13 to 15% authority is significant enough to address the roughly $8,000,000,000 deferred maintenance problem?

From an administration's viewpoint, we haven't necessarily had those conversations with the CSU or brought in the LAO, but that's something that we'd be open for, having those conversations and see if the 15% is an adequate amount and see if any proposed, amendments to that bill can be proposed in the upcoming budget cycles to possibly authorize additional general fund usage.

Okay.

Yes. Sorry. Jenna Jennifer Patel again from the alleged analyst office. When the state in 1415 gave CSU the ability to issue university bonds for state approved facilities, it wanted to make sure that it didn't take on so much debt and it had an adverse impact on the rest of the operating budget since that service comes out of the operating budget. So the the legislature can consider whether the is it 15% for CSU?

When you look at their total core budget, it would be more like half that. The state's debt service, for example, hovers about, like, 5% of general fund revenues go to annual debt service payments. But the main driver there is just what do you think is a reasonable debt burden for CSU and how do you wanna balance the rest of operations with debt service?

Right.

Now when it comes to their deferred maintenance backlog, that's 8 some billion dollars and what to do about it, I think in the past, the state has made it a high priority whenever there's one time money to help with this. The state we have done reports in the past to say it's a important issue for the state to think about on an annual basis what CSU should be using out of their operating budget for just regular projects to keep deferred maintenance projects from ever arising. Right?

In an ideal world, we don't have different the state doesn't have deferred maintenance projects are well are done on time and additional costs don't arise because of delayed action. So they're they're they're connected issues, but I think what you would consider in setting the debt level for CSU, the 15% is gonna be slightly different than exactly how you go about tackling the deferred maintenance backlog, if that makes any sense.

Yeah. Yeah. We would obviously make the pitch for bond funding or one time funding to address deferred maintenance, as opposed to borrowing internally. So we we would love to get back to a situation where we have more of a partnership and discussion each year around facilities needs, and and, it is obviously a great use of one time funding.

Were there any requests made to the administration for more of this funding?

Yeah. Our our board's budget plan seeks up to $1,100,000,000 for deferred maintenance. That was part of the plan adopted in the fall, and and we're certainly continuing that request as

Sure.

As we talk.

What's the response from the administration on that request?

At the time for the governor's budget, the administration did not propose any funding for the deferred minutes just given the overall budget outlook. The administration, prioritized the, compacts to the CSU, minimizing any further impact for students, but we are aware of the deferred maintenance backlog.

Is there something that you may be considering for the May revise on this front?

Can't speak to anything in the May revise, but we would be open for, conversations with the legislature in this CSU. I would say that the governor's budget, starts the, starting point of conversations between the administration and the legislature for any additional considerations that may revise.

Okay. And I know the LAO, I, I I'm very familiar with, I think it was a 2023 report, most recent of of many, on the issue of infrastructure backlog and deferred maintenance, which was for me an impetus try and have this conversation about an actual bond.

Can we and I don't remember if this was in there or not, but can you help us maybe before May revise identify at the current rate of what is allocated in well, I mean, there's there's nothing specifically in this year's budget, but so that's easy to calculate. But maybe using CSU's internal bonding capacity in their program, what it would take to actually fulfill the deferred maintenance needs of CSU? Is that something perhaps in a few weeks you may be able to put together?

It doesn't have to be an extensive report. But

Yes. And I'm sorry. You might already recall this, and it has been a couple of years. But when we tried to look at UC and CSU, what it would take within their operating budget or within the state's additional augmentation of their budget so that they would be allocating enough each year. Right.

We we pegged it to, like, a best practice under fiscal conditions, which is something if I recall, like, two and a half percent of the replacement value of their entire inventory of facilities they would put aside every year. And then we had a ten year plan to retire their existing defer their existing backlog. So under after ten years, they'd have no backlog, and they would have built up the practice of setting aside two and a half percent of their replacement value inside their operating budget.

And as I recall, the numbers are sort of staggering Yes. Because the state has not done this to date.

So it's like hundreds of millions of dollars they would have to be spending right now to keep their facilities in good condition moving forward. So we can reshare that table that we put together, but it's just to give you a heads up. This is a statement of how important it is to just have good fiscal beginning. Because once we get forty years down the road, it's just so much more difficult.

Right. I appreciate that. And I do recall some of that in that report from three years ago, but it would be good to remind us. Let me move on from facilities now to the issue of of revenue, and we talked about this a little bit in panel one or issue one on the core fund versus growth fund. So back to that a little bit, but something that was stated from the LAO, so go to you first.

The there's a 4.2% revenue increase anticipated due to tuition. And earlier, your colleague shared that annually there's been a 4.2% increase. Now I'm trying to understand if is that the 4.2% reference earlier, which is roughly a number of average, is that inclusive of state revenue and tuition revenue, or is that only state revenue? Can you help me understand the difference there?

Yes. So the 4.2% that I referenced just now is just looking at tuition and lottery. So 201,000,000 for tuition and about 11,000,000 for lottery. The number that was referenced earlier that looks over the last ten years, that includes general ongoing general fund and tuition as well. So Combined?

Combined. Yes. And that looks over the last ten years. So it's a average that includes both.

So, so would it be fair, accurate to say that in terms of revenue, it's a 4.2% increase plus the 7%. Well, let's just say five because two is from previous years. For the current year, that is being out, so almost Yes. 10% increase?

Yes. On page 16 of the agenda, it shows on that figure too that 8.1%. So that's inclusive of the tuition, lottery, and general fund, which we consider CSU's ongoing core funds.

Yes. On page 16 of the agenda, it shows on that figure too that 8.1%. So that's inclusive of the tuition, lottery, and general fund, which we consider CSU's ongoing core funds.

So it it's currently around 8%, and if a general fund was removed, it would be around 4.2%.

Okay. I'll give CSU an opportunity to respond. Obviously, there's been a lot of increases, but I think that, you know, it certainly begs the question, what, almost a 10% increase, how is that being managed?

Yeah, and I would just want one issue to note is that, for the tuition increase, we do take a third of that increase and use it for financial aid for our state university grant program. And so, that is, we would consider that not available. But, I would just note, we obviously did not receive new ongoing funding in the current year, so this budget proposal is attempting to address that in addition to the thing.

Yeah.

I would, I would also just note, we have studied our sort of funding structure over the years and, based on our sort of student demographics, the programs we're trying to offer, we, in a report that was done in 2023, looked at sort of national modeling around higher education and sort of what we were spending and what we should be spending.

We feel we're about $2,000,000,000 short on what we should be spending to support the kind of students we serve and to expand on the programs that we serve. So, I think any of this, funding increase, we're incredibly appreciative of the governor's budget. We're incredibly appreciative of Assemblyman Fong's efforts to gather support for, fully funding, CSU and the UC. But, we think this is, all of this will help us to better serve our students, expand our programs, serve the state better.

I don't think anybody would argue that we don't put enough money into education across the board. I think what we're grappling with is, and I have to more, more consistently think about is, as, and all of us will probably be here for several years, is what the next few years look like.

Yeah.

And we would be, I think I'd be doing a disservice to this committee and to our body, if we don't think about what could happen in a year of deficits and what kind of, just complete disruption to the system could happen when we don't have the resources to, to maintain the level. And so, I'm trying to understand, you know, while always more funding is what we aim and strive for, when that's not gonna happen, how do we, or how are we, the least disruptive?

And so, that's what I'm trying to figure out. How are we managing increases in revenue to stabilize, given, so that brings me, actually, to my next questions. You know, the, the LAO, or maybe finance, pointed out, there's out year commitments, at least, that have been stated by this administration, which, given the reality of what it looks like, may very be difficult to accomplish.

So, how is CSU planning? How are they assume, what are the assumptions being made for those out years, given the probably reality that it'll be very tight over the next couple of years?

Yeah. And I think that's why you're seeing these, sort of large-scale efforts at efficiencies.

We wanna get ahead of, we, we see the same out year deficits you do and, I think, are cognizant of that, and, and the, I think the answer, I mean, I don't know that we can out efficient, you know, major state funding declines, but I think we are trying to position ourselves so that we can, we, we are as efficient with every state dollar as we can be, and that's through shared services, the integration of two campuses.

But I think those, those are the kinds of things. This fiscal health monitoring process will continue to involve discussions with every campus on the challenge, the specific challenges they face, the efforts they're making. But, I will say, a lot of the universities have made significant reductions in the last few years, and it will become harder and harder to make reductions while also trying to address state workforce needs and, and making sure more Californians go to college and get a CSU degree.

To, to be more direct, do any of the turnaround plans, the fiscal plans, CSU system's expectation, Chancellor's Office expectations for what happens over the next couple of years, do they, are they assuming the roughly, I think it's $400,000,000 in the, over the course of two years of funding materializing, or are you planning in a way that does not include that funding?

I think both in a way. I mean, I think we are, we are trying to be efficient and, and get ahead of, of costs. But, at the same time, the five year compact funding, we did make plans. We are trying to address all of the compact goals that are laid out and we intend to continue that. But, I, I, it is a, as you point out, it's sort of a tricky balancing act here where we, we do need to be prudent and more efficient.

But at the same time, if we really do wanna achieve the goals of the compact, or the goals the legislature has for us, we are gonna need ongoing funding. And, even in bad budget years, we hope that higher education remains a priority, and, and we can make our case for, for more state funding.

Yeah. Last question from me is sort of related to one that doctor Patel made, which is, are there, is there research? Are there models that are being looked at? We have campuses of various sizes from a few thousand, I think, to almost 40,000. In most cases, they come with the traditional, you have a president of a university, and you have some organizational chart that is probably very basic, and I don't know the extent of that.

Are we, is, is the Chancellor's Office looking at that and whether that model of administration is sustainable?

Yes. I would say that the, through the shared services initiative, I think there are a lot of discussions and efforts going away, and this is a formalized process where universities can come forward, or the chancellor's office can come forward, with ideas for consolidation or sharing of services. And there are numerous projects either underway or being considered. And I think some of that would fall under that kind of idea of how do we, consolidate things.

I mentioned Sacramento State and Stanislaus State sharing a CFO, very difficult, but that's the kind of thing that I think

we we could see more of in the future.

Sure

Are there, are there reference studies or research that you're utilizing to make some of those decisions or to encourage folks to look into? I'm just curious if there's national models or

Yes, I think there are, there are several national organizations we work with. The state SHEEO, and I can't remember what that acronym stands for, but I think there are things like that. I think through the fiscal health monitoring process, one of the things that I think will be really important about that process is it'll allow campuses to learn from each other and, as they're making reductions or efficiencies.

That's a big part of that process, it will allow the Chancellor's Office to be working with all of these universities, all 22, and sharing ideas around the system. We are, obviously, a very large system, and I think there'll be a lot of great ideas that come out of that that we can implement throughout the system.

Okay. Well, again, that and the other plans, I think, topic for discussion more at length for, for more details from my colleagues. We'll move on to Mr. Fong.

Thank you so much, Mr. Chair, and thank you so much to our panelists here. This question is directed to our CSU representative.

In terms of the funds for the five-year compact, and to continue to meet those goals and to meet the goals of the state and our legislature, but he mentioned that the funds are essential to stabilize our campuses and to sustain the growth that we have directed the CSU to achieve?

Oh, I'm I'm sorry. Could you repeat the question?

Oh, absolutely. In terms of the five year compact, and the goals there in the compact, and the goals that we've had as a legislature to continue to grow the CSU, and to stabilize the campus, and sustain the growth there, rather than deferrals to future years, would those funds now, to meet the needs of the compact, help CSU to continue its growth?

Yea. We would, we would love for Governor Newsom to be the first governor to fully implement a five-year compact with the full funding. The goals in the compact are around access, affordability, collaboration, graduation rates. And I think we have plans to meet all of those compact goals, but we do need that full funding to achieve those goals. Without full funding, we are getting close, I think, to a lot of those goals, but we are not there yet.

And so, we would love the opportunity, to use that funding to really, lock in and, and make sure we achieve every single goal in that compact.

Absolutely. And to continue to fund that, and to make sure that we provide, look at opportunities for back payments for the fourth year of the compact funding, and the full, I think, going forward as well, and to retire the emergency loans as well.

Yeah.

Yeah. In terms of the work and efforts that the CSU has done, and, and to follow-up on the chair's question on this as well, the, this being the last year of the, of the compact.

How are you preparing? How's the CSU preparing for future budgets without any assured increases going forward?

Yeah. I think we are making lots of efficiencies, and trying to be very prudent with how we spend state dollars. But we do have significant plans. Our, our CSU Forward strategic plan is very ambitious, has very specific targets around graduation rates, community college transfer increases, and student debt. We wanna make sure every student from a family that makes $75,000 or less graduates without debt.

All of that is gonna take resources to enact, and so I think we, both have our eyes on all of those goals. We are trying to, to make efficiencies, and cuts, and reductions, and get ahead of, of cost increases where we can, and it's, we're trying to balance those two, together.

Thank you for that context. And anything we can do to continue to fully fund the CSU, especially in these challenging times now, especially with the federal cutbacks on number of research grants, MSI grants, and with the institutions there, to continue to protect and fully fund higher education here in California, is something that I'm gonna continue to advocate for. So I really appreciate the insights. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you.

Okay, I think that will be it on this panel. We will appreciate it and move on to issue number three. This is the, so we are holding the issue open. Moving on to issue number three, the annual reports, as required by legislation enacted in the last couple of years, to hear an update on the Title IX issues and the activities on the Chancellor's Office.

I want to thank the Chancellor, who provided us at the first hearing of the segmental hearing on an update, but here to provide more updates and more specifics, we have the CSU available, and welcome you, and thank you for being her

Good morning, everyone. It's nice to see you again. I'd start with an introduction. My name is Peter Lim. I serve as the executive adviser for civil rights programming and services at the CSU's Chancellor's Office.

I'm delighted to share this update on civil rights programming and services across the CSU, and I’d start with the state auditor report.

As everyone knows, in 2023, the state auditor delivered 16 recommendations across the CSU system on civil rights, designed to improve and elevate the service we deliver to our students and employees in the context of Title IX violations, Title VI violations, which, as an umbrella term, I refer to as civil rights. That really was a call to action for us.

That really served as an impetus to change the way, not only we responded to incidents of civil rights violations, but also how we prevent them. I’m pleased to report that we have implemented, timely, all 15 of 16 recommendations, and that last one, we’re well underway to meet that recommendation timely.

That involves a system-wide case management system, where we document our efforts to respond to civil rights violations. The last set of campuses across our 22 is jumping into that program, and it will be done by June 1st of 2026. So, we will timely complete that recommendation. What I also want to share is how we have elevated civil rights across the system. We want to deliver a high-quality service in two forms, one in prevention, and one in response.

Across our system, we want our students and employees to receive a high level of civil rights service, regardless of the campus they attend or the campus they’re employed at. It doesn’t matter to us if they’re attending CSU Maritime, or they’re attending CSU San Diego. They should receive that same level of service, if they’re harmed by a Title IX violation or a Title VI violation.

So with that in mind, we built prevention and education teams across all 22 campuses, and this is a monumental change and shift in the CSU. For the first time, every single campus has a dedicated coordinator, who helps prevent the occurrence of sexual harassment, and other forms of sex-based misconduct.

We do that through education. We do that by becoming, through that education, part of the fabric of the community on that campus, and we’re making huge strides in that. And I’m really pleased to share the work that our prevention and education coordinators are doing across the CSU system.

The other, as we think about our response and delivering high-quality service, we’ve built an infrastructure that has never been seen before at the CSU Chancellor’s Office.

Right now, we staff our Chancellor's Office with subject matter experts in civil rights and civil rights attorneys, who serve each and every campus, who review decisions and critical decisions that they make to serve their students and employees, and who review every document that that office provides to students and employees across the system.

By doing that, by centralizing that service at the Chancellor's Office, we help ensure that at CSU Maritime, at CSU San Diego, at CSU Humboldt, all deliver that same high-level service to their students and employees. We also are piloting, for the first time, a centralized investigation service, where we, at the Chancellor's Office, are staffing our team with civil rights investigators that we can deploy to each campus to help build their capacity and improve their investigations at each of those pilot program campuses.

There are five campuses that are involved in this pilot program. We will serve that pilot program for the course of academic year 25-26, monitor its efficacy, and those campuses include Humboldt, Chico, Sacramento State, East Bay, and Bakersfield. And we’ll share that progress, and whether we expand that pilot program across the system, in 2026.

And finally, our oversight teams. Our oversight teams meet with our campuses on a weekly basis, to make sure that they’re recording their decisions, that they’re providing that service, and we are delighted to share that as well. This is a really new approach to civil rights for us at the CSU. This is really predicated on understanding and appreciating that our response to civil rights is a service, and that we deliver a high-quality service.

So I'm really pleased to share this update with you, and I'm here to answer any questions.

But that concludes the update.

Thank you very much. Appreciate you and the work that you do there. The first question is, we ask this of UC and just want to get clarity. Has every campus now, does everybody have a coordinator? I don’t know what position you may call it in CSU, but that’s someone that’s dedicated and in charge of Title IX.

Is there someone on board at every campus?

Everyone, yes. System-wide policy. They all enforce each campus having a dedicated, permanent Title IX coordinator or DHR administrator.

Appreciate that. I wanted to ask more on AB 2987, which was one of the bills, or take a bill from a couple of years ago, that we must have updates within five days of disciplinary action to the respondent and the complainant. What has been the, where can we identify with that data? Where, where would you, where do you post that information?

So, if you go to the Chancellor's Office web page, you will see a dashboard. That dashboard provides full transparency on all the investigations conducted in any given academic year. It goes back '25-'26, or '24-'25 and '23-'24. '23, when we started it as a result of the state auditor recommendations. As part of each campus' dashboard, you’ll see data on investigations conducted and sanctions imposed.

You'll also see how those sanctions correlate with certain findings. So, if it's, by way of example, a sexual harassment finding against an employee, you'll see what the disciplinary action was. In terms of the timing of that disciplinary action, the five days, that's baked into our nondiscrimination policy, and those sanctions get imposed in that timely fashion through our policy.

So so, obviously, there’s investigations that occur, and some may go longer than five days. I’m trying to understand, in terms of the five-day requirement that the legislation required, are, are the updates being provided and being reported on? In under which circumstances the update was required or not required? How are we, how are we, how can we understand better in that report, that requirement, and when it’s being met in terms of number of days?

So, the investigations, and let me clarify. The investigations aren't being conducted in five days

Right.

The gathering of the evidence, and the steps that we incorporate to build a full and fair process, take longer than that.

Okay.

The five days that I'm referencing is the imposition of sanctions. So, okay. At the conclusion of that investigation, if there's a finding, or an adverse finding against an employee respondent or a student respondent, it's the imposition of the sanctions. So, the sanctioning process that follows the investigation, upon such a finding.

So, just to, again, get clarification, the imposition, is it once the investigation is concluded, that’s communicated right away, or may take some time for that to occur? Maybe there’s, I don’t know, more review that occurs. I’m just trying to really understand exactly when, so that there can be a lot of clarity for everybody in transparency, because it’s a question that’s been raised to me as to when should we, a con investigation is concluded. When is the information provided to the respondent?

So the the information in terms of the finding is provided to both the respondent and the complainant simultaneously, and it's provided in the form of a written report.

Okay.

Sp the written report includes a summary of facts, an analysis of those facts, and a finding or a determination of responsibility, which clearly states to both the complainant and the respondent who participated in the investigation whether the information was sufficient, by a preponderance, to find a violation of policy.

So they get that finding first.

Okay

Upon an adverse finding, then, that triggers the sanctioning process, because both parties have the opportunity to share the impact statements, what we call aggravating or mitigating statements. So, they fully and fairly participate in the sanctioning process. So, once there's a finding, that's when our five-day clock starts tolling, and that's when they have the opportunity to participate. But, the finding they receive first.

Okay. The finding triggers the five days, and you're and you're meeting the five day requirement on all cases where there's findings.

If we are not meeting or if there's an extension at the request of either party

Then, we are communicating that extension to both parties, so they understand and are aware. We can't say that everyone is done in five days, because sometimes the party says, "I need more time to digest this finding. I would like to submit an impact statement. I would like to submit some mitigating factors that you should consider in imposing a sanction." So, sometimes that takes a little bit longer, but we will inform the parties where we extend that deadline.

Okay.

Is that the same approach that's taken to the other piece of legislation by our colleague and chair, Fong, of AB 2047 on the adjudication and resolving of complaints of sex discrimination in a timely and effective manner? I mean, you must have the same dynamic happening where you're having a finding, and there may be an individual who may challenge or ask for more clarification. How, how, how is that different or the same?

So the adjudication piece is the finding piece. When we talk about adjudication and doing that timely, we're talking about the investigation, that first finding that I just referenced. So after the gathering of the facts, and after that trained investigator analyzes those facts, they will issue an adjudication. They will say, one way or the other, whether they find that the respondent violated university policy. That has to be done timely.

That’s not five days. That’s a hundred working days that we grant that time period to gather that evidence and reach that determination. We are really, really focused on delivering those adjudications in a timely fashion, and so that’s one of the metrics that we measure in the CSU. It’s one of the things we’re evaluating as part of that shared investigator pilot program, because we’re trying to do them faster, but also providing a full and fair process.

So if a person was to say, "I need more time to share more information before you reach a finding," we'll consider that request, and sometimes that extends the deadline. But, as long as we're communicating that to the party so they're aware and informed, we feel we're providing

Last question. Is the data available on the Chancellor's website with non-identifiable information raw data, or is it cumulative, percentage types of reporting?

It's both individualized and collective. So, you'll see collective data, but it's all de-identified. We can't disclose the names of people who participated, yeah, but it's all de-identified.

Okay. Right, right, Okay Thank you.

But you'll see responding class, just to pick up on that. You'll see whether it was an employee or a student.

Got it. Thank you. Yeah. Mister Fong.

Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for your leadership and efforts on Title IX issues, also. And thank you, Mr. Lim, for the updates here. In terms of the system-wide case management system across the CSU campuses, we noted in the report that summer of 2026. Do we have a, a sense as to how that project's coming along?

So, we have, I believe, 18, don't quote me on the number, 18 campuses already in the program. They're already using the system-wide case management system. There's gonna be some growing pains in that, but, to help minimize those growing pains, we are delivering office hours.

We are monitoring their ability to use that system. And while they're learning and growing into the system, because that's very different than the system they're, they're accustomed to using, we're trying to teach and coach them how to use the system and ensure that all the campuses are utilizing the system in the same way.

So, I think it's going, for me, I would say I think it's going relatively well in light of the size of this initiative, but we will be done in a timely way by 2026.

And, and thank you for that context. And then, in terms of the structure, in terms of the specialized oversight capacity that the Chancellor’s Office and, right into five dedicated teams, is that based on a regional model? Or, how do, how do we share best practices around Title IX issues?

It started as a regional model. So, I appreciate the question because it started in clustering campuses within specific locations or geography. It shifted over time; some campuses need more support than other campuses. They're not all the same.

And so, what we've done is clustered our campus based on need. And so, it's no longer, I would say, geographical, but it is still regional. Five clusters across the 22 campuses, all supported by a specialized civil rights expert and a civil rights attorneys, who meet with those Title IX coordinators and DHR administrators on a weekly basis.

Okay. Thank you for that context. And in terms of the funding for this type of program, is that in place? Is that something that the CSU system, to to make sure that we have their investigation, timely investigations? How's that working out right now?

So the funding is challenging. This is a difficult thing to fund because, as we expand our programming, the funding, it, it becomes more, it becomes more expensive for the CSU. We have funding in place to support these regional oversight teams. But, as we look to investigations, as we look to improve them and to centralize more investigators, we'll have to find the funding to support that

Okay. Thank you for that context as well. And really appreciate my colleagues. Couple years ago, we had a robust Title IX package, including chair Alvarez and a number of my colleagues. And thank you so much to our committee and to Ellen, especially from the education committee for her leadership and efforts around this topic area.

And we know we've had a really robust hearings around this issue the last couple years, especially to look at the auditors report and how we implement the recommendations. So, I appreciate the updates here today, Mr. Lim.

Thank you to CSU system for the updates here and the work and efforts ahead as well. Thank you, Mister chair.

Thank you. Appreciate that. This is an oversight item. Thank you again for your information and the work that you do. Appreciate that.

Move on to issue four, basic needs. We'll bring back a panel from finance, LAO, and CSU, to give us an update on this issue. It's something, obviously, that the legislature has really been committed to in terms of supporting the issue of poverty, hunger, homelessness, and all the other trends that we are seeing among many, many CSU students. So we will kick it off with the Department of Finance. Do you have any comments on this?

Alex Anaya Velasquez for the Department of Finance. The governor's budget does not propose any ongoing changes to the CSU's basic needs, rapid rehousing or mental health services, and maintains the current service level as follows. For basic needs, $26,300,000 for rapid rehousing, dollars $6,800,000. And then for mental health $15,800,000 for a total of $48,900,000.

This concludes my remarks, and I'm happy to take any questions at the appropriate time. Thank you.

Thank you. We'll hear from the legislative analyst office.

Thank you. I'm Natalie Gonzales with the legislative analyst office. We have a few comments on this topic. The state funds three categorical programs at CSU that are generally viewed as addressing student basic needs. These include funding for food assistance, rapid rehousing, and mental health services.

The state created the rapid rehousing program at CSU in 2019-20 and the state began providing ongoing funding for CSU for basic needs and mental health in 2021-22. The governor's budget leaves funding for these three programs flat in 2026-27, and there are no new state proposals for these programs this year.

We wanted to note though that the Federal Government recently tightened certain exemptions such that some CalFresh recipients, including students, are going to be required to work twenty hours a week in order to maintain their benefits. These changes go into effect in June, and they could potentially impact the ability for some students to receive CalFresh benefits.

We'd also want to note that CSU students, unlike other CalFresh recipients, also could also qualify for Pell Grant, Cal Grant, middle class scholarships, and institutional financial aid, all of which include gift aid that can help with funding living costs, including things such as food.

Thank you and happy to take any questions at the appropriate time.

Thank you. CSU.

Yes. Mark Martin with the CSU. Happy to share an update on the CSU basic needs initiative, which is a core program at all CSU universities. We view basic needs as a key to student success. The initiative has evolved to a coordinated system wide student wellness infrastructure that addresses food and housing, insecurity and mental health needs.

As was noted, CSU receives nearly $50,000,000 in state support for these programs. I can give you an update on some of the information from these services, and there's a slide in my handout, the last slide there, that has some of this data. More than 77,000 students acts access food pantries on campuses in the 2024-25 academic year. Campus based case managers supported more than 16,000 students in their application for CalFresh benefits.

All CSU Campuses have established relationships with local agencies, many of whom provide food to our campuses and or other projects such as diapers and baby food.

More than 4,800 students received emergency financial aid grants to help them meet a specific cost that could have been a barrier to the students staying in school. I will note that food pantry utilization has doubled on campuses in the last four years, indicating need and I think also indicating that these food pantries are becoming more integrated into campuses and more students are aware of them. While data is somewhat difficult to track, we think we have about 80,000 students receiving CalFresh benefits.

On housing, emergency housing is offered at all campuses, and 18 campuses utilize the state funded rapid rehousing program. The rapid rehousing program provides emergency grants, rental subsidies, short and long term housing options and case manage it management.

7,150 students were assessed for housing referrals and 2024-25. More than 3,000 utilized housing support resources, and nearly a thousand students were placed in emergency housing either on campus or off. As for mental health, all CSU campuses provide counseling and psychological services, and counseling centers collaborate with various other campus programs as well as providing prevention, early intervention and culturally responsive outreach. Few facts for this program, about 32,000 students access counseling services in 2024-25. Campuses reported about 5,400 walk ins or crisis appointments.

A few other updates to share. We are starting to develop some outcomes data related to basic needs. For example, Chico State found that persistent rates persistence rates were much higher for students who used one or more basic needs services when compared to to students who didn't. And Stanislaus State conducted surveys and found that seventy four percent of students who used basic needs services said the services help them stay in school.

We are partnering with organizations like the California Policy Lab, the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association Basic Needs Data Academy, and the Center for Equitable Higher Education to improve our ability to better understand student need on our campuses and to support more research into basic needs usage and student outcomes.

We're also active partners with the other higher ed, public higher ed segments in the state in the California Higher Education Basic Needs Alliance, which brings basic needs together monthly and supports work with the State Department of Social Services and other state and community partners. We believe these programs are all critical to student success. Student wellness is not auxiliary to CSU's mission. It is foundational. Thank you, and I'm happy to take any questions.

Thank you. Appreciate the update. I wanna focus just on one thing. I mean, there's a lot of good happening with the program, but one that sort of has risen as a common theme is the issue of of CalFresh and the federal requirements. And I'm still uncertain as to how, given the the students' utilization of this, how the federal changes are gonna impact them and whether the work requirements are gonna create issues.

Have you has a system started to look into how to address that and how we're going to make sure we serve those students who are in need of those programs?

Yeah. I my understanding is the I mean, students are already faced several hurdles to CalFresh. They were essentially not allowed unless they made an exception. And there are several exceptions. Work is one of them, being enrolled in a program that increases your employability, and I think there's some work going on around that, statewide right now.

So we are still, grappling with that. I would I would note a couple other federal changes that in HR1. One is there is a lower reimbursement right now for administration of CalFresh and that will impact campus's ability to do outreach and support students, in applying for CalFresh. So we're very concerned about that and we're trying to, you know increase services around that. There is also changes to immigrants and who qualifies for CalFresh.

The changes will prohibit asylum seekers, refugees. It's I think some of the same things you're seeing in CalWork's and other things. So we are aware of several of those changes that I think will really impact our services are trying to work on efforts to address those.

They're one of the federal research grants that was cut was a program called SNAP Ed, which a lot of campuses used, it helped create gardens that were then used in the basic needs food pantries and other kind of nutritional programs that help students learn about how to be more nutritious. That program has been cut.

So I think there's several several things that are happening that we are grappling with and trying to continue service levels, but it's difficult with less federal funding.

You mentioned that there's some work being done. I have always assumed that the not the work complaint, but the receiving an education to further their careers. Part of HR1 would be what most students would qualify for. So what when you say work being done, what is happening in that space to hopefully have that as an alternative?

I think there are most viable alternative.

Yeah. I think there are conversations going on right now with the state and the universities and community colleges. I don't I'm not sure there's an official announcements yet, but I I do think we're trying to address that. I think you could argue that most programs at a institution of higher education are seeking to improve someone's employability.

Right.

And there I think there's so I think there's a lot of conversation around that. I'm not sure there's anything settled, but

What's the deadline for all of that to kick in? Is that July 1?

Yes. Okay. I think well, actually, I think some of this took started April 1. Oh, so actually

Already.

Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. Maybe more to follow-up on that. That's it for me on this topic. We'll go to Mister Fong.

Thank you so much, Sir, Mr.chair. And just wanna follow-up on the Chair'' question as well. The so in the lines of the imposition of new work requirements for CalFresh recipients, and you mentioned April 1 or July 1, how is the CSU expecting to adjust its approach to continue to support our students there?

Yeah. And I think if you look at a lot of the turnaround plans, I think, universities are trying to expand basic needs programs. We do we are starting to see that that really does impact outcomes. And so I think the, you know, with appropriate state funding, we hope we get. I think you will see expanded services there.

We are working on a, I think, a study this year that looks more specifically at student need, what the costs are of the programs we're running. I think it's, we obviously get the state funding. There's a lot of philanthropy going on. I will note last year during the federal shutdown in the fall, a lot of universities really did a lot of philanthropy to get emergency aid to students who are having trouble accessing CalFresh benefits.

And I think you'll see you see a lot of that in the turnaround plans too that there's some philanthropy opportunities around basic needs that I think universities are using.

Obviously, you know, the the these federal funding cuts are significant. State funding for these programs has been flat. And so we are trying to do more with less, but I think, most campuses are working on expansion of those kinds of programs because we do see the benefits to students.

Absolutely. Benefits to students and student success and retention, multiple efforts there. And then on page 25 of the report, I know you gave a high level review of all the different campuses. But when we look at the different campuses, it's the 16 campuses make fresh food and vessels available 19 campuses have meal sharing.

Is there a reason why that all the campuses don't offer all these types of programs?

Yeah. I think it's a good question. I think all campuses offer similar types of services. Some of them are more specific. Some of them may be more local, partnerships.

Some of them may be using state funding. Some of them may be using local funding. And so, I would just say for all three of these kind of topics food, housing, mental health, every campus offers programs that address these student needs. They are all slightly different to meet, individual, campus demographics and that kind of thing. But I but I assure you every per every university has, food insecurity programs, housing insecurity programs and mental health services, that are funded by the state, by the campus.

Obviously, there are some student health fees and things like that that pay for some of the the mental health as well.

Well, thank you so much for the context. Anything we can do to continue to make so we can continue to offer additional opportunities around these types of services is critical for our students. So appreciate all the updates here. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Thank you to all three. Appreciate it. We'll hold the issue open and move on to issue number five on common course numbering. We'll ask the panel to please come forward.

This is a priority that we have had at this committee, particularly this year. There have been legislative proposals approved, signed into law, and we've come to learn. It's been a very, very long process to identify courses at our hearing in March with the UC. The what we learned from them was that so far, there's about a 150 different course templates that have been produced.

And that as of fall of 2025, there are six courses that have been implemented in terms of common course numbering and that in fall of 2026, so this coming school year, 18 more courses will be numbered.

So I'm assuming that's the same because we're all working together on this, but certainly interested in hearing the CSU's perspective on how this is going. Obviously, related to the earlier conversation on enrollment. The easier or the more we facilitate, I should say, students being able to transfer and get into a CSU, the enrollment issue is also benefiting from that. So that matters for for that purpose and also, obviously just for students having access in general.

So we'll give CSU, well, give everybody an opportunity, but I assume, CSU has the bulk of this presentation. We'll kick it off with finance.

Yes. Alex Anaya Velasquez with the Department of Finance. Just really quickly in our March hearing with the UC, the subcommittee you questioned the amount of funding still available from the $10,000,000. So we were able to confirm with the community college chancellor's office that roughly $8,200,000 have been exhausted and there's roughly $1,800,000 that remain.

Additionally, no additional funding is proposed at the governor's budget, but I'm happy to answer any additional questions.

Thank you for bringing that information. Appreciate that. LAO.

Thank you. Natalie Gonzales with the LAO. We have no comments on this agenda item. Thank you.

Thank you. We'll turn it over to CSU. Welcome.

Yes. Good morning. I'm Elizabeth Boyd, and my pronouns are she/her, they/them. And I just wanna say that as a first generation college graduate and transfer student who experienced food and housing insecurity in my youth and young adult life, I'm very honored to sit here before you as in service, to the California State University as a Faculty member and Chair of the Academic Senate of CSU. It's a pleasure to see you again, Chair Alvarez, Member Fong and staff.

Very good to see you. Thank you for the opportunity to give you an update on the work of AB 1111, the community college common course numbering. I'm joined by my esteemed colleague, who will introduce herself and begin our update.

Thank you, Chair Boyd. Good morning, Chair Alvarez and members and staff. I am Marci Sanchez, the Assistant Director of Undergraduate Transfer Programs at the California State University office of the chancellor. I'm in the academic programs department working with transfer pathways and related policies and and processes. I served on the AB 1111 task force and currently sit on the common course numbering council as a system level representative for the CSU.

I also work with the team that coordinates the annual review process for the statewide general education transfer pattern also known as Cal-GETC, with the University of California Office of the President. We want to share a few transfer facts, for the CSU to get started. As reported earlier this morning, transfer applications to the CSU system are up. Regularly accepts over 90% of transfer applicants across the system.

According to a recent report by the Public Policy Institute of California, about 58% of community college students who successfully transferred to a four year institution in California went to CSU.

And CSU currently accepts transfer coursework at that the community colleges designate at the baccalaureate level. And how that credit applies to comparable subjects and requirements at each CSU campus is called articulation. And the CSU follows both campus and system wide processes to review those courses. The common course numbering direction that the community college system has adopted offers an opportunity to reflect upon their current review system for determining applicability of transfer coursework at those statewide and campus levels.

My understanding of the CCN project is that, coursework in phase one was chosen because it had the highest levels of enrollment and well established transferability for existing coursework at the community college campuses.

Phase one course subjects also meet admissions requirements for the CSU system and similar requirements for other segments. In fall 2024 after the development of the phase one templates, we in the chancellor's office asked our campuses to voluntarily review them for applicability to campus based requirements.

While we were not funded for this work, we wanted our campuses to weigh in on the use of templates for transfer coursework and provide feedback to us in the chancellor's office and the community college system about template content and detail. As of fall 2025, the voluntary review of templates by our campuses has resulted in over 15,000 courses across the CSU system that are comparable to the commonly numbered community college courses.

According to community college data, there were over 500,000 enrollments at their campuses in phase one courses in fall 2025 alone.

And by our estimates, this equates to around 180,000 students, possibly more, but that's the kind of the low end. Those phase one commonly numbered courses will be accepted by our campuses for a variety of requirements. The process at our campuses to evaluate and accept commonly numbered courses includes additional review by discipline faculty, as well as updates to admission systems, transfer credit rules, and all degree audit and graduation systems.

While this is a standard process for community college coursework changes each year, the need for each of our campuses to change close to 700 additional community college courses with phase one was a substantially increased workload for our campus departments. Our campuses must update the articulation agreements for each individual community college even if the courses are commonly numbered and accepted for the same or similar requirements.

In fall 2025, the chancellor's office asked campuses to take the available phase two templates through their transfer evaluation process, again, on a voluntary basis. And the updates to transfer agreements will be published for public access in the assist.org platform by late summer, early fall 2026. So I now turn it over to Chair Boyd, to provide the remainder of our presentation. Thank you.

Thank you, Miss Sanchez. Chair Alvarez, we are we did our best to review the questions from the agenda and from the UC hearing, to attempt to proactively address those in our remarks to be as efficient with our time as possible. So that's sort of the structure of what I'll present for you. First, I just wanted to clarify what a CCN template is. A template is exactly as it sounds.

It is a generalized outline of course level student learning objectives, but it lacks specificity. For example, in order to subsume a diversity of courses, templates do not include details about topics, pedagogical approach, or sample assignments that provide clarity on exactly what transfer students learn. So why does that matter?

The details of what are covered in a course are critical for determination of whether a course not only passes muster for a general education course, but also whether or not the course will satisfy a CSU graduation requirement and also prepare the student potentially for a major preparation course. So what does the student see was one of the questions and they don't see the templates.

But as you're likely aware, many of our transfer students take courses from multiple CCCs. And instead of seeing a different number at each community college that they attend to get classes from, say for like, a communication studies course, they'll see one number regardless of the community college they attend, which will reduce unnecessary duplication within the community college system. And if it's carefully designed by the faculty, then they will know from assist and then also through good counseling, how it fits into the general education pathway.

So with respect to the benefits the CSU foresees in implementation, there are many places, especially in several generalized general education courses, which do not double or triple count for additional graduation or major requirements, where CCN templates can provide adequate general detail to ensure that students transferring to the CSU enter with the same background as their classmates who started in the CSU. We thus, see a great deal of opportunity to smooth the transfer for such common skills courses.

We also see an opportunity to highlight major preparation courses by determining where we need to maintain carefully detailed articulation processes outside of the CCM. For example, in many regions, the CCC and the CSU faculty have created efficient course pipelines that allow, classes to count for GE and major preparation, in majors that serve local workforce needs. So if these courses get lumped into the CCM frameworks, due to their general education status, we'll stop up these pipelines to career and harm those transfer students.

So we have to be very careful about how we move forward. In terms of support, guidance, resources, the CSU needs to ensure that the common course number system moves forward as intended.

The CSU faculty wanna have more opportunities to weigh in on the CCN template development. However, in contrast to the $115,000,000, allocated to the community colleges for this work, the CSU has not received funding for this intersegmental partnership with the exception of a of a $150 stipends to CSU faculty who have been able to contribute on the community college working groups. As the templates finally get released, there will be increased workload for our campuses and the assist platform.

We will need to have that be updated to help smooth the addition of templates to the articulation ecosystem. And as a faculty course adviser, I wanted to mention something else, which I see is critical to seamless transfer irrespective of course numbering, is better mechanisms to electronically process transcripts from the community colleges.

And I know that you all are aware of that as well. I understand there are ongoing discussions and work to get us, away from PDFs and redundant hand entry of courses, and that can't happen too soon. So when will phase three be completed? And will the deadline statute be met? For many courses in general education, we hope very soon.

As a member of the unfunded Intersegmental Committee of Academic Senates or ICAS, who is tasked with the creation of the singular general education transfer model curriculum known as CAL-CATC. I can tell you that faculty in the three segments have been working hard on this. Last year, ICAS passed a resolution encouraging CSU and UC to informally review templates to preemptively identify barriers, which then resulted in the voluntary review in our segment.

And however, from my understanding, phase three templates were held, subsequent to memos circulated by the community college chancellor's office, but just recently were released to the CSU in the last week for cursory review. You had a question also about how often there are meetings, so we wanted to just touch on that and conclude.

So faculty have been very active, voluntary and unfunded participants wherever we've been invited to contribute. For example, there are monthly meetings of the 27 member CCN Council on which three CSU faculty CSU members participate, including Miss Sanchez here to my right and two faculty who primarily serve as consultants to the council given the voting majority.

In terms of the Intersegmental Committee of Academic Senate, the faculty leaders from the UC, CSU and community colleges meet at least monthly to discuss a lot of different intersegmental issues, but among them, they are making progress on the process for CCN template approvals for general education. And however, as I mentioned, the CCC administration had previously paused phase three, but now that they've been released, they've released those templates, I expect the pace of the meetings to accelerate.

I wanna thank you very much for this opportunity to be here and answer your questions.

Thank you. That concludes my remarks.

Thank you. Appreciate the very thorough report there. I have a pretty basic question that I probably should have asked before. Does each template represent a course or are they multiple templates potentially for the same course?

So would you like me to yeah. Go ahead

They are a single a single template that represents a multitude of courses across the community college system. So one template to potentially cover a 115 courses or potentially more depending on how many fall under that template. So one number for a minimum of or a maximum of 115 community college courses. And, again, this is my understanding of how the community colleges are studying this.

Is it a 115 courses? Because I heard some a test the testimony you mentioned was different you have to have an agreement with every single community college because of the just the way the system is, which seems like there's some inefficiencies in that, which we'll definitely talk to community colleges about. But is that the reason why it's a 115 courses, or are we talking about a, let's just say, English 101, 102, 103. Is that a 115 that way, or is it a 115? Because there's a 100 and almost 15 community colleges.

It's based on the number of community colleges. So the English C 1000, for instance, as the English composition example, is the same number at each of those 115 community colleges. That's the goal.

And it will replace the many potentially different numbers that existed in this system for the same course.

Got it. In the system of the community college system, you mean? Just as someone who took a couple of Africana studies and Chicano studies courses, Is that work also being because I know, like, for example, some of my oral communication was in the Chicano studies department, but it was the same as oral communication in the English department.

Does is is that work inclusive of that? How is that, like, another level of review? How is that being integrated?

So the CSU is required through legislation in 184060 to follow very specific guidance on any courses that fall under the ethnic studies graduation requirement. The work of ICaS actually, we negotiated with our University of California partners to include that course in the Cal-GETC pattern and double count it into general education.

So however, each of those, the councils at our respective segments are responsible for the disciplinary expertise for the different areas of ethnic studies that fit into those subject areas denoted in.

Yeah.

I'm more concerned with those students who choose an Ethnic Studies Department General Ed Course, which is and and not potentially missing out on the benefits of common course numbering because it happens to be in Africana studies or Black studies or any number of others, but it's really a communications course or a writing course or a literature course or or a history course as well.

So that's what I'm that's the question that I'm trying to convey here is are we capturing students who are choosing those as their General ed options as well?

That that is the goal, I think, to look at the largest numbers of enrollments and kind of work backwards to make sure that we're most number of students possible, through what has already all the enrollment trends that have happened up to this point. So I think that's the what we've been shown at the council level are results of data analysis that shows these subjects have the larger number of enrollments across the largest number of community colleges and districts.

And starting with those so that those will provide the within system transferability that works and then working towards the the articulation at the four year school level. I believe a Chicano studies class was included in the phase three template development as well.

So they are looking across all GE areas and then also looking at large numbers of enrollments.

Would that be a phase three, potentially?

That one is yes.

Okay.

Yes.

That's important to know. Thank you. So to then be very specific in terms of the number of what UC referred to as student facing courses, a number of courses that are commonly numbered with CSU. How many are we talking about at this moment?

So there are the standard, templates that then turn into the individual courses. So there's six of those standard templates, and then community colleges have the option to offer an honors version

Uh-huh.

And an embedded support version that helps with AB 705 and 1705.

Okay.

For English and math. So that was the four the number 14 that was shared by the UC. Okay. So each one of those templates actually if a campus if a community college campus chooses to adopt that template, they that is a course on their campus. And then those are considered part of that phase one review that we just went through.

So we're talking about this. So I was getting confused. The six reported by UC as fall 2025 courses For a moment here in today's testimony, I was given that I don't have the history that that you all do and and AB 1111, I think, was the number. I was assuming maybe UC had their own common course numbering with community colleges, and then you were gonna have your common course numbering with you guys. So it really is common course numbering.

It's the common course numbering at the community college level, and then we accept this.

Which applies to both of you.

We accept those courses.

Right. And so you are currently also accepting six courses?

It's actually the breadth, the 14 between the standard and the honors and embedded support courses that have commonly that are commonly numbered.

So there are 14 courses at a community college today that a student can take that are commonly a pretend no. I'm not asking potentially. How many are actually you see, in their testimony, said that as of fall 2025, not potentially, but actually implemented, there are six courses.

Those are the standard ones. Yeah. That's correct.

I think what is a little bit tricky here is our terminology. So we are talking about templates, and the templates encompass potentially over a 100 courses.

Right.

And so six, sounds very small, but it's not. It's hundreds of courses that have been approved to be articulated using these more streamlined number system, if that makes sense. So it and so that's why you're probably not getting, like, super clarity on

I think what I'm gonna ask of both of you and ask of the community they're they're gonna come to this committee in a couple weeks, is can't you just show me which courses are actually commonly numbered and give me a listing of them? You know, course catalog and I can just reference that because you're right. I think I'm getting a little bit this.

We'll send you the website. There is a website with the approved templates, and they're all listed. So you can go and see, like, the mathematics template for statistics. And that one would be universally

Yeah. And I think I I think I get that issue of the templates. I think and I may be jumping ahead certainly from my perspective, not from yours, but the the point of all this is what is the experience for students? And can they go to any of the a 100 plus community colleges and know that if they take Biology 101, UC and CSU, it's the same biology requirement there. That's why I'm maybe it's simplified, and I understand that that it probably is.

But from a student perspective, the whole point of it is is to simplify. So that's what I'm looking for. What exactly is the student facing reality when it comes to to the numbering courses? So we'll follow-up on that. Again, we'll have community colleges here before us in the in the next two or three weeks, I believe. So appreciate the work.

I hear you. It's been a commitment, a voluntary commitment, and appreciate it because it is meaningful to the students and certainly wanna find ways to be more supportive of that. So thank you, both of you, for your work. And thanks to all the panel. And thank you to everyone who came today to provide testimony.

Thank you, Chair.

And now we'd like to ask the public if there are anyone who would like to make comments on items that were on today's agenda. We'd ask you to please come forward, state your name and affiliation if you have one, and provide your, testimony again on the issues that were before the committee today. So it's opportunity to come forward. Is there anyone in the audience who'd like to speak? I see, welcome.

Hello, Mr Board. My name is James Carlson. I last was here in late February when the Chancellor was here, and I am once again here to speak with you guys. So a couple of things.

One, I would like to encourage you guys to take a closer look at, Mr. Fong's budget for the 2025-26 and 2026-27 school year. And second off, I am from Oroville, California from Butte County. I know what underfunded schools look like, and you do not fix a bleeding patient by removing more blood. I would ask you guys to seriously reconsider reallocating funding for schools, especially those schools who are not receiving enough funding.

As one of my friends, when I was discussing this said, it's like a reverse Robin Hood. You are taking from the schools that need it the most to get to the ones that do not need it the most. That's all I had to say. Thank you guys very much for your time.

Thank you. Welcome.

Hello. My name is Aiden. I'm a Graduate Student and Academic Senator at Chico State. I'm here to speak in support of Assembly member Fong's budget request for full compact funding for both the 2025-26 and the 2026-27 budget year. I'm also here to caution against any further funding reallocations from campuses like mine, which are failing to meet enrollment goals despite, the university's best interest.

I mean, best efforts. Sorry. My classmates and I are seeing fewer course sections and we are having a harder time getting the classes we need, in order to graduate on time. It's also been a lot harder for, myself and others to, experience the kind of support that I was given in my undergrad, in my time as an undergraduate student, which was exemplary.

And it's just, every year, it seems like it gets harder to sort of justify even, advocating that students try and get that kind of support.

So I think things like the hiring freezes we're seeing are limiting faculty availability. We're losing out again on that kind of enriching student support. And I don't at all get the sense that any of this comes as a result of declining quality or effort on the part of campus administration, faculty, or staff. So for campuses like mine that are already below target, I think the reallocations of funds to campuses which are already meeting or exceeding their targets seems to compound the problems.

Thank you very much.

Thank you so much.

Good morning. Carol Gonzalez on behalf of the Cal State Student Association. As you consider CSU enrollment and funding decisions, we wanna thank you for centering the student experience in your comments and questions today. While we understand the state's fiscal constraints, a shift from expansion to stabilization could mean reduced access to high demand campuses, increased pressure to transfer pathways, and strain on course availability and student support services if funding does not keep pace.

While funding is delayed or uncertain, students feel it directly through fewer course offerings, limited advising, and mental health services, and longer time to degree limited advising and mental health services, and longer time to degree.

At the same time, students are navigating rising housing and living costs. This moment presents an opportunity to prioritize affordable affordability through financial aid, basic needs, and ensure accountability for student outcomes. Ultimately, the state investment in the CSU should directly improve affordability, access, and academic success for students. Thank you for your continued commitment to CSU students.

Good morning, Andrea Terry. I'm an associate professor in communication studies at Sacramento State and a member of the California Faculty Association. Thank you for your support of the CSU. I was delighted to hear about the average 5% annual increase that the CSU system has been getting that was, referenced by the LAO today, but that money simply isn't realized for the majority of CSU students, faculty, and staff. The numbers of temporary faculty are rising.

The numbers of permanent faculty are decreasing, and we at Sac State are facing a number of critical staffing shortages that have made life really difficult to be able to effectively serve our students. So today, I'm urging support for Assembly member Fong's proposal for a full compact funding for this year and the 2026-27 academic year, but I urge you to make sure that funding is directed towards direct instruction and student support. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good morning. My name is Melina Abdullah. I'm a professor of Pan African studies at Cal State LA. I'm also the PA Ledge chair for the California Faculty Association.

And I've taught in the CSU now for twenty two years. I want to just echo what's been said about Assembly member Fong's budget proposal and ensuring that we receive full compact funding for the 2025-26, 2026-27 academic years. I also want us to, want to encourage you all to tie executive compensation to how well they do at achieving their goals. At Cal State LA we are one of those schools that is under enrolled but the compensation for the presence continues to soar. In fact, her total compensation package is now $722,000 for the year.

Her allowances alone are more than what I make is my total salary. And so we wanna make sure that resource, those resources go to funding students, funding classrooms, and providing for the things that actually make Cal State the great place that it is.

Thank you very much.

Hi. Good morning, Mr. Chair. Steven Butcher with CSUEU, California State University Employees Union. I wanna thank you for the hearing today. We're in strong support of the proposed January budget, which makes sure that staff is properly compensated.

I'd like to thank the committee for your ongoing oversight and discussion of these issues today. Ensuring that CSU workforce is strong and fairly compensated is critical to ensure, their mission. We appreciate the discussion under issue four as well. Ensuring our students have basic needs is critical. One mechanism to strengthen student, income is by sending a clear message to the CSU to bargain and negotiate fairly with our 20,000 student assistance that we represent for a fair contract.

We need a funded CSU that supports every corner of the state and its employees, and the governor's January proposal demonstrates critical funding for the CSU, and we look forward to working with you. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good morning. Mario Guerrero, Government Affairs Relations Director with the CFA, also lecturer at Sacramento State. I did wanna resurface and recenter, this idea that we've talked about. The campuses do a lot right beyond, educating our students. They're also economic engines.

So as we talk about enrollment and as we talk about reducing funding for campuses, we have to also continue to think about the impact, to the economic health of that region. Secondarily, just wanna lift up AB 1831, Aron's bill. We heard today about, linking executive compensation to enrollment. We invite you to have that conversation with the sub member Aron's and see if that's a possibility. We think that's something that we should look into. Thanks so much.

Thank you.

And hello. I'm Adam Swenson. I'm the Vice chair of the AS-CSU and was lucky enough to not have to sit there today. I just wanted to thank you for your attention to the common course numbering stuff. I've been swimming in it for the last couple years, and it is complicated.

We're doing the best we can for our students. And I wanted to, on behalf of the AS-CSU, say that we strongly support, the proposed budget and hope that this committee can also find money for the CSU because we would like it, please. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Anyone else wishing to provide public comment? Okay. Seeing no one else, thank you all for being here today. This, brings an end to our hearing of today.

We're adjourned.